
            On PLANTATIONS and PLANTING.

eligible for the reception of the roots at planting, as it will fill up the interstices
between, and exclude the air:  whereby the young planted trees are
more likely to succeed in their taking root, than when planted in the natural
clayey soil; for in such strong lands deep planting should be avoided,
as the loss of many plants proceeds from the super-abundance of moisture
with which in winter such soils are saturated, and thereby perishing the
roots, unless they are of the aquatic kind. Therefore it may be observed,
that in such soils, the trees, &c. should be planted on small hills, or, as the
Gardeners term it, above ground; by this means the roots will be more
distant from the too great quantity of moisture beneath, and thereby less
liable to be damaged.

THE seasons for planting deciduous trees and shrubs are either autumn
or spring, though the more hardy kinds may be planted any time during
the course of the winter months, provided the weather is open. If the soil
is of a dry nature, it is more eligible to take the opportunity of planting
when the autumn rains begin to set in, the earth at that season being warmed
by the preceding summer's heat, and assisted by the moisture which then
falls: the trees and shrubs will immediately strike root, and get tolerably
well established before winter sets in, and therefore better enabled to withstand
any drought which may happen the succeeding spring or summer.
But where the land is a very strong loam, clay, or otherwise naturally
moist, the spring season is to be preferred for planting, especially evergreens,
and particularly those of the pine or fir kinds, with some others; altho' as
was before observed with regard to deciduous trees in light warm soils, autumn 
is to be preferred. The same reason holds in respect to evergreens,
provided the autumn rains set in tolerably early.

WHEN the season for planting is arrived and the ground ready for the
reception of the trees and shrubs, it will be necessary previous to setting
them in the ground, to divest them of so much of their branches as will
bear a proper proportion to the loss of roots occasioned by taking them
up.  This operation should, for deciduous trees, be performed immediately
before planting, and may be done by thinning out the branches, so as
some be shortened close to the stem, where they are too thick, and others
left a foot, or eighteen inches in length, for perspiration, reserving the extreme 
shoot; for by thus disburthening the stem of its unneccessary branches,
the winds have not the power of disturbing the tree while taking root; and
the thinning is otherwise necessary, for as the root is reduced, the top 
should have no more branches than can be supplied therefrom after planting,
so that the whole may shoot with vigour at the proper season.

SHRUBS should also be thinned out discretionally for the same reasons. The
roots also should have their proper pruning by cutting off all small trifling fibers,
and the extreme ends of what are intended to remain. But with regard to
evergreens, the knife must be used more sparingly, and particularly with 
those
        