Advantage of Home Nurseries to Proprietors. 



The renewing of old plantations and the planting of new ones is a 

 duty which falls to the forester less or more every year ; and to secure 

 success, it is highly advantageous that the proprietor should have a 

 home nursery, properly stocked and kept in good order. This is espe- 

 cially necessary if the estate stands at a high altitude, where the 

 ground to be planted is often of the barest and bleakest nature. 



It is not my object to dilate on the details of nursery management, 

 as it is presumed that the forester has acquired a practical knowledge 

 of that branch of his business already ; and I also pass by such con- 

 siderations as the advantage of a home nursery for the rearing of plants 

 to a large size for special purposes, or the object of having a stock 

 always on hand to meet emergencies and obviate the necessity of going 

 long distances for small quantities of trees. My chief aim is to point 

 out the utility of a home nursery when planting on upland, barren, and 

 exposed districts ; also, how it may be of great practical use in training 

 the young forester to a thorough knowledge of his profession, and 

 imbuing him with correct notions of the proper treatment required by 

 trees even in their primary stages. 



The successive advances which cultivation has made on our more 

 outlying districts has driven the modern planter to a higher zone, so 

 that he generally carries on his operations in a more ungenial climate 

 and on a less inviting soil. In the pastoral, semi-arable districts of 

 our country, all practical farmers agree that plantations are invaluable 

 for checking the force of the wind, providing shelter for their 

 stock, and otherwise modifying the severity of the climate ; and we 

 believe that proprietors might ultimately considerably raise the value 

 of this kind of property by judicious planting. Indeed the writer has 

 heard an enterprising tenant in one of these districts suggest that if 

 his landlord would plant for shelter he would ask no deduction 

 of rent for the land required. Many thousands of acres at 900 feet 

 and upwards above sea-level could easily be planted without impairing 

 the pastoral or agricultural resources of the country, and at the same 

 time there would be a greatly increased yield of timber produce be- 

 sides. No doubt there are difficulties to contend with in planting at 

 this altitude, especially if the soil is inferior and the situation very 

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