5. When your seedlings have stood thus till June, bestow a slight digging upon them, and scatter a little mungy, half-rotten litter, fern, bean-hame, or old leaves among them, to preserve the roots from scorching, and to entertain the moisture; and then in March following (by which time it will be quite consum’d, and very mellow) you shall chop it all into the earth, and mingle it together: Continue this process for two or three years successively; for till then, the substance of the kernel will hardly be spent in the plant, which is of main import; but then (and that the stature of your young imps invite) you may plant them forth, carefully taking up their roots, and cutting the stem within an inch of the ground (if the kind, of which hereafter, suffer the knife) set them where they are to continue: If thus you reduce them to the distance of forty foot, the intervals may be planted with ash, which may be fell’d either for poles, or timber, without the least prejudice of the oak: Some repeat the cutting we spake of the second year, and after March (the moon decreasing) re-cut them at half a foot from the surface; and then meddle with them no more: But this (if the process be not more severe than needs) must be done with a very sharp instrument, and with care, lest you violate, and unsettle the root; which is likewise to be practis’d upon all those which you did not transplant, unless you find them very thriving trees; and then it shall suffice to prune off the branches, and spare the tops; for this does not only greatly establish your plants by diverting the sap to the roots; but likewise frees them from the injury and concussions of the winds, and makes them to produce handsome, streight shoots, infinitely preferable to such as are abandon’d to nature, and accident, without this discipline: By this means the oak will become excellent timber, shooting into streight and single stems: The chess-nut, ash, &c. multiply into poles, which you may reduce to standards at pleasure: To this I add, that as oft as you make your annual transplanting, out of the nursery, by drawing forth the choicest stocks, the remainder will be improved by a due stirring, and turning of the mould about their roots.