490 The yoiivnal of Forestry. 



trees remaining in rows, it may be obviated by removing some of the 

 young oaks, and by planting occasionally one or two oaks in the rows 

 of the firs. In the earlier period of these plantations the larches were 

 much affected by the white insect, but they seem in their growth to 

 have entirely thrown it off, and nothing can be more straight or 

 beautiful than the appearance of the plants at present. I may remark 

 that much mischief has been done in some places by the field mouse, 

 which has been known to bite asunder oak and beech plants of an 

 inch and a half diameter, nor have we been able to devise any effectual 

 means of destroying these animals. The firs they never touch. The 

 trees which have thriven least have been the beech and lime, and 

 I am inclined to think that our soil, which is very deep clay, is 

 not at all congenial to these species. The beech grows and swells 

 for a certain time, and then the bark cankers and the leaves fail. 

 The lime (the red-twigged), which has been planted in various places 

 for ornament, bursts its bark, and becomes diseased at the point 

 where it issues from the ground as soon as the trees acquire any 

 size. All the tribe of firs, except the Balm of Gilead, prosper 

 greatly, but the oak is the tree that thrives the best, and I have 

 many trees that have not been planted more than twenty-five years 

 which measure two feet nine inches in circumference at five feet 

 from the ground, with bright and shining bark and clean heads. 

 The soil, indeed, seems most congenial to the growth of oak timber, 

 for the few old trees that remain are of great size, and the stumps of 

 very large trees are yet visible in many parts of the park. Most of 

 the trees now growing in these woods were purchased as seedlings, 

 or grown from acorns and planted in a nursery, from which they 

 have been transplanted after two or three years. Many thousands 

 of trees of various sorts have been planted out singly for orna- 

 ment ; of these the Turkey oak and Spanish chestnut thrive the best ; 

 the Spanish chestnut swells and increases rapidly both in bulk and 

 height. The sycamore also thrives greatly and luxuriantly. In 

 planting single trees I have followed the Dutch method of giving 

 them precisely the same situation with regard to the points of the 

 compass as that in which they stood before they were moved; 

 and I find that the roots shoot, and the trees recover themselves 

 much sooner in this way than when transplanted without con- 

 sideration, and I have found much advantage in a plan recommendetl, 

 I believe, by Mr. Loudon, for keeping the trees steady and firm in 

 their places by placing three pieces of wood triangularly on the root, 

 and pegging them down to the ground by long forked stakes at the 

 angles. I have not much adopted Sir Henry Stewart's plans, for I 

 found they required considerable expense, and more constant attention 

 than my labourers would give. 



