The Plane. 



in height, in the same manner as has been suggested in the 

 case of the Oak. As the trees advance in height, their 

 lower side-shoots should be taken off, in such manner, as to 

 secure a clear stem and a straight one, if possible, of 

 eighteen or twenty feet long. That is long enough. The 

 heads of the trees would then get pretty close together ; 

 there would be beauty above and profit beneath ; beauty in 

 the foliage and profit in the trunk. 



460. The proper season of cutting down the trees is, of 

 course; the winter; and of the qualities and uses of the wood, 

 I have already spoken. I do not say that I recommend any 

 one to make a plantation of Persimons ; but, it might be 

 done upon a small scale at a very little expense ; and if one 

 were plantuig a coppice of Birch or of Hazel, it might in 

 fact be done at hardly any expense at all. 



THIS riiAHE. 



In Latin, Platanus ; in French, Platane. 



461. The botanical characters are : — It has male and female flowers grow-. 

 ing separately on the same tree. The flowers are collected in a round bell ; 

 they have no petals but very small empalements, which have oblong 

 coloured stamina, terminated by four-cornered summits. The female 

 flowers have scaly empalements and several small concave petals, with several 

 awl-shaped germen sitting upon the styles crowned by curved stigmas ; these 

 are collected in large balls. The germen turns afterwards to a roundish seed 

 sitting upon the bristly style and surrounded with downy hair. 



462. This is one of the trees in knowledge with regard 

 to the propagation of which I pride myself ; and the reader 

 will see that it is not without reason, when he comes to that 

 part of this article, in which I am to speak of the experi- 

 ment made last summer in the raising of Planes. 



