This volume, being principally a monthly detail of a nursery practice, which has supported the test of competition, has, on this account, a very different credit and value from much that has been published of landlords’ practice, theorists’ conjectures, or adventurers’ quackery. The burthen of our author’s song, which, from the nature of the work, falls to be repeated at several of the calendary periods, and which perhaps cannot be too often repeated, is nearly as follows. Procure good seed of the best varieties from large healthy trees, and preserve these in husk in dry {170} well-aired places till sowing; with the exception of ash keys, haws, holly-berries, roans, and yew-berries, which require to be put in the rot-heap as soon as gathered. The rot-heap consists of seed mixed with sandy earth formed into a layer not exceeding ten inches in thickness; this is turned several times before midwinter, when it is covered with a layer of earth about seven inches deep, to exclude the frost. After remaining in this heap one year—till September, or the following February, these seeds are sown out. Sow seeds of trees during the last half of February, March, or April, on beds of high manured easy soil, in very fine tilth, and clear of weeds, such as follows hoed green crop, in distance and depth in proportion to the size of the seed, or rather of the annual stem or braird. To deposit the seed at an equable depth, the upper friable mould is pushed (cuffed) off the bed to the interstices between by the reversed head of a rake, as deep as necessary; the seed is then deposited by the hand, and rolled over by a very light roller to fix it, that it may not suffer derangement by the return of the earth which is then evenly _cuffed_ back from the sides, and no harrowing or raking given. Watch most narrowly, and ward off or destroy all {171} kinds of vermin, mice, snails, birds, till the time when the rising braird has disencumbered itself of the husk of the seed thrown up by the ascending stem, and nip out every weed as soon as discernible by the naked eye. In order to diminish the toil of watching, the different kinds should be sown as near the same time as their nature renders prudent, and the seed-beds be situated as near each other as circumstances will admit. At the end of the first or second season, according to size and closeness of plants, remove the seedlings from the bed to nursery rows, at any time when the leaf is off, and the ground sufficiently dry not to poach; before April for deciduous trees, and during April for evergreens, placing them in rather open order, either by dibbling or laying, according to the nature of the root, firming the plants well in the ground; in case of dibbling, taking good heed to leave no vacuum of hole under the root, and to work the tool so as to compress the earth more below than above.