OF FRUIT AND FOREST TREES. 



333 



Although I do not mean to enter at large on the culture 

 and management of foreft- trees ; yet as the following obfer- 

 vations on railing Oaks, and directions for planting Chefnuts 

 for underwood, may be of considerable fervice, I fhall, with- 

 out any farther apology, lay them before my readers. 



The beft Way of raifing Oaks. 



It is a generally received opinion, that when an oak lofes 

 its tap-root in transplanting, it never produces another ; but 

 this I have proved to be a miftake, by an experiment which I 

 made on a bed of oak plants in the year 1789. I tranfplanted 

 them into a frefh bed in the forementioned year, cutting the 

 tap-roots near to lb me of the fmall fide-roots or fibres {hooting 

 from them. In the fecond year after, I headed one half of 

 the plants down, as directed for Chefnuts, and left the other 

 half to nature. In the firft feafon, thofe headed down made 

 ilioots fix feet long and upwards, and completely covered the 

 tops of the old Items, leaving only a faint cicatrix, and had 

 produced new tap-roots upwards of two feet and a half long. 

 One of thefe trees I left at the Land Revenue Office, for the 

 infpeclion of the Commiffioners, and to fhew the advantage 

 of tranfplanting and heading down young oaks, when done in 

 a proper manner. By this mode of treatment they grow 

 more in one year than in fix when raifed in the common way. 

 The other half of the plants, that were not headed down, are 

 not one fourth the fize of the others. One of the former is 

 now eighteen feet high, and, at fix inches from the ground, 

 meafures fifteen, inches in circumference ; at three feet from. 



the 



