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course of thirty years: And, as to deaths, one in from forty to forty-five being the average number, contingency may,in some sort, be said to be excluded from an art, which has, in all ages, been proverbially unsuccessful and fortuitous.

In this, and the foregoing two Sections, I have now given as clear an account, as I could, of the PREPARING, TAKING-UP, TRANSPORTING, and PLANTING of Large Trees and Underwood. From the novelty of the subject, and the difficulty of making manual operations intelligible by words, the whole account has unavoidably been drawn more into length than might have been expected. Some apology, therefore, on the score of tediousness, and circumstantial detail, is due to those, who may open the book from mere curiosity. To those, on the other hand, who read for information, and whose object is real practice, the case is considerably different, as they perhaps may be of opinion, that the detail, long as it is, has not been given circumstantially enough.

SECTION X.

TREATMENT OF THE TREES SUBSEQUENTLY
TO REMOVAL.

It is with the Removal of Large Trees, as with the execution of ordinary plantations. As soon as the plants are fairly put into the ground, the planter usually conceives his labour to be at an end, and that all after-cultivation is supererogatory or superfluous. This, although a common, is a very pernicious error, and is not less injurious in its effects, in the one case, than in the other. Perhaps there is nothing, in the course of this treatise, that is calculated to be more interesting, or more practically useful to the young planter, than what is to be stated respecting After-work, in the few following pages.

In the foregoing three Sections, the Preparing and Taking-up, the Transportation and Planting have been treated as applicable, First, to Single Trees, and Open Dispositions of wood; and Secondly, to Close Plantations; therefore, in point

ing out the After-work, the same order shall be followed, beginning, as before, with the former department.

First, as to Open Dispositions of Wood. In the end of April, or beginning of May, as soon as the removal of the last Trees of the year (usually the lime, the horse-chesnut, and the oak) is over, is then the time to examine the whole, and see how they stand as to cover upon the roots. For that purpose, after trying various substances, I have found nothing so completely efficacious as the refuse of a Flax-Mill, called, in this part of the country, "Shows," which, when they accumulate in the mill-yard, are generally thrown into the river, and carried away by the next flood.* During the scutching season, which commences in autumn, and extends frequently to the following spring, it is prudent to lay in a stock of Shows, sufficient for the extent of your work; and, by stacking them up in a dry state, they will not heat, but keep well for nearly a twelvemonth.

But, before this valuable covering is applied to the Trees, it is expedient to go over the entire surface of the pit, with a wooden Beater, made in the fashion of the beater used by paviers, but greatly larger, ten or twelve inches broad at bottom, and furnished with a double handle, in order

* NOTE I.

that two men may work it. In working the Beater, it must be raised as high as three feet, or more, from the ground, so as to descend with the utmost force, on the loose mould of the surface; which surprisingly promotes consolidation, and, by consequence, the retension of moisture. For all trees, however, this mode of consolidating is not essentially necessary; but with the beech, the oak, the birch, and such others as are most sensitive of drought, it acts as a powerful preservative, during the first season: and, as it is at the nucleus of the root, immediately under the collar, that the fatal effects of drought are most readily felt, so it becomes the more important to provide the best mode of protection, in that quarter.

It was directed, in the last Section, that, on the planting being finished, the cover of earth, at the stem, should be from a foot to fourteen inches deep, and, at the extremity of the roots, from six to eight inches. If, by subsidence or the beater, somewhat should be lost of those dimensions, it is now proper to supply them. The next thing to be done is to level and dress the surface, and prepare it for grass-seeds. Supposing the tree to stand, as often happens, upon a mound or hillock, forced up by the earth or compost, which has been added to the original soil, the handsomest way of uniting it with the ground is, first, to flatten it a little at top, and then to shape the mound in the fa

shion of the Ogee in architecture, a well-known figure, consisting of a round and a hollow :-For it is according to that pleasing figure, or some modification of it, that the most beautiful and elegant forms in nature, whether animate or inanimate (for example in the female figure), are always found to be fashioned: In fact, they are the forms, on which every eye delights to dwell, and every artist is studious to introduce into his works.

In wooding a new, or improving an old place, by means of the Transplanting Machine, it is to be observed, that, on the sides of approaches, or other principal parts of the grounds, where foreground Trees are scattered with profusion, it is of some importance, that these hillocks should always appear easy and natural swells, which belong to the ground on which they have been superinduced. Above all things, they should be well"tailed out," as the workmen call it, beyond the dimensions of the pit, letting their hard outline imperceptibly disappear, and, as it were, die away in the outline of the adjoining surface. Thus, they will give dignity to the Trees that crown their summits, instead of seeming artificial and unsightly protuberances.

For this purpose, the Director of the work should take a view of it on every side, at ten or fifteen paces off, as it proceeds, and there give his orders for the execution, which will also strikingly

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