The Oak. 



into beds, in the manner directed for the Ash in paragraphs 

 109 and 110. The beds being prepared, you begin the 

 sowing; but 1 must first speak of the manner in which the 

 acorns are to be preserved until the time of sowing. When 

 you have picked tliem up, and have ascertained that they 

 are good and sound, you first make them perfectly dry in 

 the sun. When that is done, mix them with very dry sand, 

 three bushels of sand to one bushel of acorns; put them 

 into barrels or boxes, or into something which will keep 

 them pretty much from the air, and, at the same time, quite 

 dry, and there let them remain until the middle of March, 

 which is the proper time for sowing. 



425. Returning now to the act of sowing, you take the 

 sand, acorns, and all together, scatter them over the beds in 

 such manner, that they lie at about two inches apart. Then 

 pat them down into the ground with the back of the spade, 

 and cover them with earth taken out of the alleys, so that 

 the acorns have about an inch and a half of depth of earth 

 lying upon them. The earth should be broken very fine, 

 because, if it be in lumps or clods, the shoot from the 

 acorn, on which a clod lies, runs along horizontally under 

 the clod, finds its way up, when it gets to the outside of the 

 clod, and continuing to grow in this shape, wiW give you 

 a plant with a crooked root, which will never become 

 straight, and which you will find very injurious. 



426. The plants will conie up in the month of May, when 

 they must be kept clear from weeds. The ground ought to 

 be stirred between them two or three times in the summer, 

 when the weather is dry, and especially after a heavy rain^ 

 This management will cause them to be two inches higher 

 in the month of October, than they would be if suffered to 

 remain without any stirring of the ground. In the month 



