174 



TREATISE ON THE CULTURE AND 



Of the Wild Service-Tree, or Mountain AJli. 



The Wild Service is fometimes planted in orchards .among 

 fruit-trees ; but I would recommend planting it in pleafure 

 grounds, plantations, or on lawns, for ornament, where the 

 different varieties of the fruit have a beautiful effecl: in Au- 

 tumn ; and the fruit gathered, when full ripe, and laid by 

 fome time to foften, has a very agreeable acid tafte. 



The feeds, when properly dried, may be fown in Autumn in 

 beds of light mould ; taking care to keep them free from 

 weeds in Summer. In the following Autumn they may be 

 tranfplanted into beds, or quarters (according to the number 

 which you may wifli to plant), and trained either for dwarfs 

 or fbandards. 



By ielecting the larger!: and finefl: fruit many varieties may 

 be obtained from the feed ; they may alfo be propagated from 

 layers ; but thofe who are fond of having a great variety, and 

 keeping the forts true, fhould graft them. 



If trained up with ftraight clean items, Service-trees will 

 grow to the height of thirty or forty feet ; in that cafe they 

 fhould be planted among foreft trees, or in the back parts of 

 large fhrubberies. But thofe who wifh to plant them as 

 flowering fhrubs muft head them down when young, to make 

 them throw out horizontal fhoots ; they may then be planted 

 among the middling-fized fhrubs, which will make a beauti- 

 ful variety, both when in flower and when bearing fruit. 



Wild Service-trees * grow to a confiderable fize when pro- 



* The fruit of the Wild Service is excellent food for Game and other birds. 



perly 



