OF FOUEST-TREES. 



157 



but they affect no other compost, save what their own leaves afford them, CH. VIII. 

 and are more patient of cold than heat. As for their sowing in the 

 nursery, treat them as you are taught in the Walnut. 



2. If you design to set them in winter or autumn, I counsel you to 

 inter them within their husks, which, being every way armed, are a good 



square will be too small ; therefore when they have grown to a size for small boards, you 

 should fell every other tree, which will reduce them to twenty-four feet square, which 

 is a proper distance for them to . remain for good ; this will give air to the under-wood 

 (which by this time would bfe too much overhung by the closeness of the large trees) 

 by which means that will be greatly encouraged, and the fall of the small timber will 

 pay sufficient interest for the money at first laid out in planting, &c. with the principal 

 also ; so that all the remaining trees will be clear profit, as the under-wood, still continuing, 

 will pay the rent of the ground, and all other expenses. 



I have here ventured to recommend the raising a wood of Chestnut- trees from the nut, 

 by the authority, and nearly in the words of Mr. Miller ; but Mr. Hanbury contends that 

 it is much better to plant such a wood from the nursery. He says, " Where a wood 

 " of these trees is wanted, they should be raised in the nursery way ; and when the plants 

 " are above five feet high, they will be of the properest size for the purpose : for they 

 " will then not be so large as to require staking, nor yet so small but that they will be out 

 " of the reach of hares, rabbits, &c. Therefore, as soon as the trees are about this height 

 " in the nursery, let the ground designed for the wood be ploughed deep with a very strong 

 " plough, that the uppermost and the best part of the soil may be laid as low as possible, 

 "to be of greater nourishment to the tree, when it receives its tender fibres. The 

 " distance these trees should be planted from one another ought to be two yards ; and this 

 "will be a proper distance for them to grow up to poles; when they should be cut down, 

 " only leaving a sufficient number of the best and most thriving trees for timber. Thus, 

 *' whilst the latter are making their progress to a larger bulk, being left at a distance of 

 " near twenty feet, the poles will, at the interval of fourteen years from the first planting, 

 "reward the owner's toil with no inconsiderable profits ; and if they are cut down within 

 " about a foot of the ground, there will be stools for another crop of poles, which will 

 " be ready for a second cutting in about ten years ; so that every ten years the planter 

 " will taste the sweets of his labour, while his expectations are still augmented, as to the 

 " advantage of his family in after-times. If the plantation is large, I would advise to begin 

 " the first fall of poles so early, and to defer the latter so late, that the year after the last 

 " fall, the stools of the first-cut poles shall have sent forth poles ready for a second cutting. 

 " Thus the proprietor will not only enjoy the benefits of an annual sale, but the country 

 " will not be glutted with too great a quantity of poles at a time, and consequently they 

 " may be sold at a better price. 



" Such are the directions I would give for raising a wood of these trees ; which I take 

 " to be better than planting the nuts, and letting them remain ; not only because the plant 

 " is then subject to a tap-root, which strikes directly into the ground beyond the reach 



I 



