Jan.] the nursery. 57 
men use the spokes of old coach wheels, or any thing about that 
size of any durable wood, painting or marking the numbers there- 
on, I, 2, 3, &c. on different sticks, entering the numbers in the 
Nursery-book, with the name of the varieties to which the number- 
sticks are placed; whereby you can at all times readily have re- 
course to the sorts wanted. 
The same method may be practised to any other trees, shrubs, 
or herbaceous plants, especially the varieties of particular species, 
when they are numerous, as in many of the flowery-tribe, such 
as auriculas, carnations, tulips, anemones, ranunculuses and the 
like. 
With respect to watering the Nursery-plants; this may be very 
requisite in dry hot weather in spring and summer to seed-beds, 
and tender seedling-plants while young, and when first planted out, 
till they have taken good root; also occasionally to new-layed lay- 
ers, and newly planted cuttings in dry warm weather; but as to 
hardy trees and shrubs of all sort;:, if planted out at the proper 
time, that is, not too late in spring, no great regard need be paid 
to watering, for they will generally succeed very well without any: 
indeed, where there are but a few, you may, if you please, water 
them occasionally, if it proves a very dry spring in April and May; 
but where there are great plantations, it would be an almost insup- 
portable fatigue, and a great expense. 
Every winter or spring, the ground between the rows of all sorts 
of transplanted plants in the open Nursery quarters must be digged; 
this is particularly necessary to all the tree and shrub kinds that 
stand wide enough in rows to admit the spade between; which work 
is by the Nursery-men called turningm; the most general sea- 
son for this work is, any time from October to the latter end of 
March; but the sooner it is done the more advantageous it will 
prove to the plants. The ground is to be digged one spade deep, 
proceeding row by row, turning the top of each pit clean to the 
bottom, that all weeds on the top may be buried a proper depth to 
rot: this work of ;tir77z«5"-nz is a most necessary annual operation, 
both to destroy weeds, and to increase the growth of the young 
Nursery-plants. 
In summer be remarkably attentive to keep all sorts clean from 
weeds; the seedlings growing close in the seminary-beds must be 
hand-weeded; but among plants of all sorts that grow in rows 
wide enough to introduce a hoe, this will prove not only the most 
expeditious method of destroying weeds, but by loosening the top 
of the soil, it will prove good culture in promoting the growth of 
all kinds of plants; always perform this work of hoeing in dry 
weather, in due time before the weeds grow large, and you may 
soon go over a great space of ground, either with a common draw- 
ing hoe, or occasionally with a scuffling-hoe, as you shall find the 
most convenient. 
According as any quarters or compartments of the Nursery-ground 
are cleared from plants, others must be substituted in their room 
from the seminary, &c. but the ground should previously bo trench- 
H 
