50 THE NURSERY. [Jan. 
Conscious of the great utility of such establishments, I shall in 
the course of this work give such ample and minute instructions, 
for the raising and propagation of fruit and forest trees, ornamental 
trees and shrubs, thorn-quicks, &c. &c. , as may lead the most in- 
experienced persons to a complete knowledge of the businessj 
which may be pursued upon a small or a more extensive scale, as 
it suits. 
In the Nursery may also be raised all sorts of hardy harbaceous 
plants, both fibrous, bulbous, and tuberous-rooted, for adorning the 
flower garden, pleasure-ground, and to plant for medical use, &c. 
Extent, Soil, Situation, ^c. 
With respect to the proper extent or dimensions of a Nursery, 
whether for private use or public supply, it must be according to 
the quantity of plants required, or the demand for sale: if for pri- 
vate use, from a quarter to half an acre or more may be sufficient, 
which must be regulated according to the extent of garden ground 
and plantations it is required to supplyj and if for a public nursery, 
for any general cultivation, not less than three or four acres of land 
will be worth occupying as such, and from that to fifteen or twenty 
acres or more may be requisite, according to the demand. 
With respect to soil for a nursery, the nature and quality of this 
requires particular attention. It ought to be naturally good for at 
least one full spade deep, or if more, the better; always prefer a 
loamy soil of a moderately light temperament, which cannot na- 
turally be too good, notwithstanding what some advance to the con- 
trary, even though the trees should afterwards be removed into a 
poorer soil. Reason teaches, that young trees growing vigorously 
and freely in a good soil, will form numerous and healthy roots, and 
when they come to be afterwards planted in worse land, they will be 
able, from the strength of their constitution and multiplicity of 
roots, to feed themselves freely with coarser food. On the con- 
trary, young trees raised upon poor land, by having their vessels 
contracted and their outward bark mossy and diseased, will be a long 
time, even after being removed into a rich soil, before they attain to 
a vigorous state. If the roots of the young plants have not a good 
soil, or sufficient room to strike in, there will be little hope of their 
furnishing themselves with that ample stock of roots and fibres 
which is necessary to a good plant, and with which every young 
tree ought to be well furnished, when removed for final transplanta- 
tion. 
Most of the authors who have written on the kind of soil most 
suitable for a nursery have differed in their opinions, even so far as 
to be almost quite contradictory to one another; and the common 
opinion is in favour of the soil being the same, nearly similar, or 
rather worse, than that into which the trees are to be inally plant- 
ed. But this is setting out upon a very wrong principle; for, were 
a nursery to be established on a poor gravel or stiff" clay, the plants 
raised on such would be poor, small, hide-bound, starved things, very 
unfit for planting in any land. 
