126 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
afterwards; the organs of nutrition become adapted to the early 
Bupply of food, and cannot he readily enlarged, on its being increas¬ 
ed in advanced age. Hence the advantage of employing rich soils 
for nurseries—of keeping young farm stock well—and of applying 
manures to young grass. A gentleman top-dressed some grass 
lands at one, two and three years old, and he found the benefit to 
the first, double what it was to the second, and treble that shown 
by the third. The hint is one of some importance to husbandry, 
and we hope it will be improved upon. The rule does hold good in 
regard to animals. 
PLANTING, No. IV. —methods of propagation. 
The modes of propagation are, by seeds, by suckers which spring 
from the roots, by layers, by cuttings, and by grafting. 
By seeds. —These may be sown in nursery beds, in drills or broad¬ 
cast, or in the ground where they are intended permanently to grow. 
In both cases, where practicable, the ground requires the best pre¬ 
paration that it ought to receive for a corn crop; and in both cases 
cattle must be wholly excluded, the plants kept clean, and the ground 
kept in a loose friable state, till the plants are of size to plant out. 
For the oak, chesnut, walnut, and, indeed, for most other forest 
6eeds, the drills should be four feet apart, and the seeds placed at 
the distance of two inches in the drills. The plants should be thin¬ 
ned, so as to leave them one foot apart, if in the plantation, the se¬ 
cond or third year. Farinaceous seeds, covered with shells, as the 
oak, chesnut, beech, plane, maple, ash, &c. are least adapted for 
keeping good out of the soil. They should bo well dried in the sun 
and air, if intended for spring planting, and continue spread in lay¬ 
ers on a cool dry floor. The smaller kinds of seed, after being suf¬ 
ficiently dried, may be kept in smaller space. The elm, soft maple 
and plane, we can say from experience, may best be sown in May, 
as soon as they are gathered. These seeds require different de¬ 
grees of covering in the soil. The larger seeds, as of the chesnut, 
oak, &c. should be covered with two inches of mould ; for the smal¬ 
ler seeds, of the hard maple, linden, ash, &c. it will be proper to 
mix with them sand, in quantity about equal to their bulk, placing 
the mixture on the ground a foot in thickness, and covering that an 
inch thick with mould. Hard seeds, or stones, as cherry, mountain 
ash, thorn, &c. with the exception of the first, remain in the soil 
one or two years before they begin to vegetate. To save trouble, 
these seeds may be kept the first summer, in sand as above direct¬ 
ed for the hard maple and ash, and sown in the autumn or spring 
following. Cover the smaller seeds, when sown, with one inch of 
earth. The seeds of the common and honey locusts, may be co¬ 
vered also an inch. The like rule applies to seeds of evergreens— 
the largest seed the deepest. 
By suckers. —The common locust and the poplar afford these in 
abundance, as does the pear, plum, cherry, &c. They are general¬ 
ly sufficiently rooted the first season of their production, and they 
should not be suffered to remain longer than two seasons attached 
to the root of the tree; for if continued longer, the support they 
derive from the parent root, prevents them from making indepen¬ 
dent roots of their own, in such abundance as they do when sepa¬ 
rated or taken up at an earlier period. 
By layers. —Among the trees that may be propagated in this way, 
are the maple, beech, ash, birch, mulberry, lime or linden, and elm. 
We described the mode of propagating by layers, and also by cut¬ 
tings, in our April number. 
By cuttings , the plane, poplar, willows and maiden hair tree may 
be propagated. Shoots of one year’s growth should be selected, 
from the most healthy and free growing branches. 
By grafting. —Even grafting is resorted to, in forest tree propa¬ 
gation, for those varieties of trees which lose their distinctive cha¬ 
racters when reproduced from seed, and which make finer trees 
when grafted on tree growing stocks of their own species. We 
have in our grounds, many elms, ornamental ash and horse ches- 
nuts, imported from Great Britain, which have been thus propagat¬ 
ed by grafting. 
In forest planting, the trees are set at the distance of three to 
five feet apart, according to their species and nature of the soil; 
and are generally thinned every five years, to suitable distances, to 
accommodate their growth. They are pruned, to increase their 
growth and improve the quality of the timber. The branches 
should at all times occupy one-third of the heighth of the bole or 
stem—the leaves of this portion being at least necessary to elabo¬ 
rate food for the tree. 
MODES OF TRANSPLANTING. 
The different modes of transplanting are termed, 1. Slit planting; 
2. Holing, or piting; 3. Trench planting; and 4. Furrow planting. 
Slit planting is the most simple, and is practised on soils in their 
natural state, without any preparation of holing, ploughing or trench¬ 
ing. It is performed by three kinds of instruments, viz.—by the 
moor planter, (a, fig. 42,) by the diamond dibble, (b,) and by the 
common garden spade. 
1. The moor planter, (a,) or prairie planter, is a heavy instrument, 
consisting of a wooden shaft and handle, two feet nine inches in 
length, two and a half inches broad at the insertion of the shaft, and 
gradually tapering to the point. The handle is made sufficiently 
large to be grasped by both hands, and the operator, with one stroke, 
drives the prong into the ground to the depth required for seedling 
trees, and by depressing the handle, the point of the instrument 
raises up the earth, leaving a vacuity or opening in loose earth, in¬ 
to which, a second person, (a boy will suffice,) holding a plant in 
readiness, places the root, and with the foot fixes it in the soil. 
2. The diamond dibble, (b,) is made of a triangular plate of steel, 
furnished with an iron shaft and wooden handle. The sides are 
each four inches long, and the upper part or side four inches and a 
half broad. It is used for planting on sandy and gravelly sods, 
where the surface produce of herbage is short. In this case, the 
planter makes the ground ready with the instrument in one hand, 
and inserts the plant with the other. He carries the plants in a bag 
or basket suspended from his waist; he strikes the dibble into the 
! ground in a slanting direction, so as to direct the point inwards, and 
by drawing the handle towards himself, an opening is made, and kept 
open by the steel plate for the reception of the roots of the plant by the 
other hand. The instrument is then removed, and the earth made 
firm about the roots of the plant by a stroke with the heel of the in¬ 
strument. 
3. By the spade, a cut is made in the turf, and crossed by another 
at a right angle : the two cuts thus made resemble the figure of the 
letter T. The handle of the spade being depressed backwards, 
forces open the edges of the cuts, and in the opening thus made, 
the roots of the plant are inserted; the spade is then withdrawn, 
and the turf replaced by the pressure of the foot. 
Mattock planting is confined to rocky ground, and to soils contain¬ 
ing many coarse, rough roots of herbage, heath, &c. Here the 
mattock is indispensable. The handle is three feet six inches long ; 
the mouth or cutting edge is five inches broad and sharp; the length 
of it, to the eye or shaft, 16 inches; the small end or pick is 19 
[inches long, (c, fig. 42.) The broad end is to be faced with steel. 
It is effectual in paring furze, heath, ferns, &c. and the pick is 
equally so for thoroughly loosening the soil to be operated upon with 
the spade or planter, ( d .) The Hackle prongs are recommended for 
clayey, tenacious soils. It is made with two or three prongs; the 
former of two, for the soil just mentioned, and the latter of three 
prongs, for stony or gravelly soils. 
Holing. —Holes or pits are dug out, and the loosened soil left for 
a season to the action of the weather, to ameliorate and reduce its 
texture. These must be, for plants of one and a half to two feet 
high, two feet broad and 18 inches deep, and filled to a suitable 
heighth with pulverized mould. The holes should be 6 to 12 inches 
broader and deeper than is sufficient to admit the roots of the plant, 
that the latter may shoot freely, and in tenacious soils, that they 
may be freed from stagnant water. The holes being prepared, the 
process of spade planting is readily performed, care being taken not 
to insert the plant more than half an inch deeper than it stood in 
the nursery, to spread the roots in their natural position, to fill with 
fine mould, and to tread the earth about the plants. 
O" In all cases of planting, it is a good practice to dip the roots 
in a puddle made with water and rich mould, which coats them and 
