156 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK I. making a great stand for at least two years upon every transplanting ; 



yet if needs you must alter their station, let it be done about November, 

 and tliat into a light friable ground, or moist gravel ; however, they will 

 grow even in clay, sand, and all mixed soils, upon exposed and bleak 

 places, and the pendent declivities of hills to the north, in dry airy 

 places, and sometimes, though not so well, near marshes and waters ; 



quai-ters, or avenues, they should be carefully taken out of the nursery ; and having holes 

 dug three feet square, and a foot and a half deep, with the turf chopt small at the bottom 

 of each hole, let them be planted in the usual manner. After this, they may be turfed 

 round to keep them steady against the winds. The best month for this work is 

 October. 



When these trees are designed for timber, they should remain unremoved ; but when 

 the fruit only is desired, it is certainly the better way to transplant them : for as trans- 

 planting is a check to the luxuriant growth of trees, so it is a promoter of their fruc- 

 tification. 



If you design a large plantation of these trees for timber, after having two or three 

 times ploughed the ground, the better to destroy the roots of weeds, you should draw thin 

 furrows about six feet distance from each other, in which lay the nuts about ten inches 

 asunder, covering them with earth about two inches deep ; and when they come up, you 

 must carefully clear them from weeds : the distance allowed between each row, is for the 

 use of the horse-hoe, which will despatch a great deal of work in a short time; but 

 it should be performed with great care, so as not to injure the young plants : therefore 

 the middle of the spaces only should be cleaned with this instrument, and a hand-hoe must 

 be used to clean between the plants in the rows, and also on each side, where it will 

 be unsafe for the plough to be drawn : and in hand-hoeing, there must be great care taken 

 not to cut the tender rind of the plants. If in the following spring the spaces are carefully 

 stirred with the plough, it will not only make the ground clean, but also loosen it, which 

 will greatly promote the growth of the plants; and the oftener these ploughings are 

 repeated, the cleaner will be the ground, and the greater will be the progress of the 

 plants, which cannot be kept too clean while they are young. When these have 

 remained three or four years, if the nuts succeed well, you will have many of these trees 

 to remove, which should be done at the seasons before directed, leaving the trees distant 

 about three feet in the rows ; at which distance they may remain three or four years 

 more, when you should remove every other tree to make room for the remaining ones, 

 which will reduce the whole plantation to six feet square, which will be distance enough 

 for them to remain in, until they are large enough for poles, when you may cut down every 

 other of these trees (making choice of the least promising) in order to make stools for 

 poles, which, in ten or twelve years, will be strong enough to lop for hoops, hop-poles, 

 &c. for which purposes they are preferable to most other trees ; so that every tenth 

 or twelfth year there will be a fresh crop, which will pay the rent of the ground, and all 

 other incumbent charges, and, at the same time, a full crop of growing timber will be left 

 upon the ground : but as the large trees increase in bulk, their distance of twelve feet 



