OF FOREST-TREES. 



55 



fino-ers in thickness ° ; But I have showed why we are not to attend so CHAP. II. 

 long for such as we raise of seedlings. In the interim, if these directions ^-^^^^^ 

 appear too busy or operose, or that the plantation you intend be very 

 ample, a more compendious method will be the confused sowing of 

 Acorns, kc. in furrows, two feet asunder, covered at three fingers depth, 

 and so for three years cleansed, and the first winter covered with fern 

 without any farther culture, unless you transplant them : but, as I showed 

 before in nurseries, they should be cut an inch from the ground, and then 

 let stand till March the second year, when it shall be sufficient to dis- 

 branch them to one only shoot, whether you suffer them to stand, or re- 

 move them elsewhere. But to make an essay what seed is most agree- 

 able to the soil, you may, by the thriving of a promiscuous semination, 

 make a judgment of 



Quid qiiacque ferat regio, et quid quseque recuset. 

 What each soil bears, and what it does refuse. 



Transplanting those which you find least agreeing with the place, or else 

 by copsing the starvelings in the places where they are newly sown, 

 cause them sometimes to overtake even their untouched contemporaries. 



Something may here be expected about the fittest season for this work 

 of transplanting : of which having spoken in another treatise as well as * Pomona, 

 in divers other places throughout this of Forest-trees, I shall need add 

 little, after I have recommended the earliest removals, not only of all 

 the sturdy sorts in our woods, but even of some less tender trees in our 

 orchards. Pears, Apples, Vulgar Cherries, &c. whilst we favour the de- 

 licate and tender Murals, and such as are pithy, as the Walnut, and some 

 others. But, after all, what says the plain Woodman, speaking of Oaks, 

 Beech, Elms, Hawthorns, and even what we call Wild and Hedge-fruit? 

 " Set them," says he, " at All-hallon-tide, and command them to pros- 

 " per ; set them at Candlemas, and entreat them to grow." Nor needs 

 it explanation. ' 



" Cato does not say, that no trees ought to be transplanted that are less than five 

 fingers in thickness : His directions only regard the manner of transplanting trees that are 

 five fingers in thickness. 



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