the inconvenience of not easily admitting either the hand or tools to clean them after the first year, the fingle row ought always to be preferred, except upon fuch foils as are quite free of weeds. For, if these spring up, and are allowed to grow without molestation, the hedge will be quickly choak

ed up with them, and ftinted in its growth. Indeed, I am of opinion, that the single row is almoft, in all cafes, the most eligible; as it is not only more easily cleaned, but likewise, for the most part, advances with greater vigour, and becomes, at laft, a stronger and a better fence than where more rows are planted; although these laft have usually a more promifing appearance for the firft year or two.

§ VI.

S VI

Of the Choice of a proper Soil for a Nursery of white Thorn-Hedges.

ALMOST all writers on agriculture, advise the farmer to be very careful to make choice of fuch plants only as have been raised in a nursery of a poor foil; and always to reject fuch as have been reared in a richer foil than that in which he is to plant them: Because,' say they, a plant which has been reared in a barren foil, has been inured from its infancy to live hardly, and will advance with a great degree of luxuriance, if it is planted in one that is better; whereas a plant, that has been nursed in a fertile foil, and has fuddenly rushed up to a great fize, like an animal that has been pampered with high feeding and fwelled up with fat, will languish and pine away if transplanted to a more indifferent foil.'

It

It would be no difficult matter to show the fallacy of this mode of reasoning, and to point out many errors which have crept into almoft all fciences, from purfuing fuch fanciful analogies between objects in their own nature fo different as in this example. But, as this would be, in fome measure, foreign to my aim in this effay, I fhall content myself with observing, that it could feldom be attended with worse confequences than in the prefent cafe, as it leads to a conclufion directly the reverse of what is warranted by experience. For, I have found, from reiterated experiment, that a strong and vigorous plant, that has grown up quickly, and arrived at a confiderable magnitude in a very short time, never fails to grow better after transplanting, than another of the fame fize that is older and more ftinted in its growth, whether the foil in which they are planted be rich or poor; fo that, instead of recommending a poor hun

gry foil for a nursery, I would, in all cafes, wifh to fet apart, for this purpose, the richest and most fertile fpot that could be found ; and, in the choice of plants, would always prefer the youngest and most healthy to fuch as were older, if of an equal fize. I fpeak here from experience, and, therefore, do it without the smallest doubt or hesitation ; being certain that future observations will confirm the juftness of these remarks.

Directions for managing the Plants while in the Nursery.

It has been hinted above, that, if the plants have been fo managed as to have their roots very much multiplied close by the stem, it will tend greatly to make them profper well after they are tranfplanted. But, as this

is

1

is a circumftance of much greater importance than is in general apprehended, I shall beg leave to call the attention of the reader to it in a more particular manner.

It was long imagined, that roots imbibed nourishment from the earth throughout their whole length, as it was apprehended, that the watery juices penetrated the bark at every place, which acted as a filtre, or very fine ftrainer, and ferved to prepare the fap for entering into the finer veffels of the plant. But the experiments of Du Hamel, Bonnet, and others, have now fufficiently demonftrated, that little or no moisture is imbibed through the pores of the bark of roots; but that the whole nourishment of the plant is absorbed at the extremities only of the fmalleft ramifications of the roots. Hence, then, it follows, that the more numerous these fmall ramifications are, the more numerous will be the mouths of the plant, and the nourishment imbibed by them will be, in

pro