134 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Extensive planting throughout the country would tend in some 
degree to raise the temperature and ameliorate the climate, while 
the benefits to stockmasters accruing therefrom would be very 
great indeed. To the ordinary observer it may seem a very simple 
matter to enclose a piece of ground and plant it with trees, but to 
the practical and conscientious forester it is an undertaking 
demanding his gravest consideration and best judgment. The 
purpose for which any given piece of ground is planted must at 
all times regulate the whole proceedings, It may be an effort to 
add to the timber-value of an estate, to provide shelter on an 
exposed hill-side, to form a game covert, or to improve landscape ; 
but whatever the object may be, the manner of procedure in the 
formation of plantations may be summed up as follows :— 
The forester plants the trees intended for the permanent crop 
at the distances apart which he considers sufficient for their habit 
and dimensions when they approach maturity. He then goes 
over the ground and fills up the interspaces with nurses, planting 
them close enough to draw up the future trees in moderatién and 
provide them with sufficient shelter, but far enough apart to allow 
the nurses themselves to be of some value when taken out at the 
second and third thinnings, although this must at all times bea 
secondary consideration. But even our most experienced arbori- 
culturists occasionally reckon without their hosts, and we some- 
times find, in cases of mixed plantations, the intended crop doing 
badly or becoming a total failure, and the actual crop formed 
from among the nurses, and therefore they should also be planted 
as carefully as possible. As before stated, estate planting is 
carried on under several conditions, and for several objects, and 
it may not be out of place to make a few remarks on each of them 
under their respective headings. 
I. Planting large areas to increase the extent and value of the 
woodlands, and to utilise more profitably land that is drawing 
comparatively little revenwe.—Although planting of this kind is 
performed on all sorts of soils and situations, yet generally 
speaking it is on soil of inferior quality, and at an altitude that 
renders the soil damp and cold, and exposes the surface area 
to strong winds. 
Now, it stands to reason that soil of such a nature holds only 
a very limited supply of plant-food in a soluble state, and 
large strong-rooted plants would be starved in it, to a certain 
extent, as regards obtaining food from the soil, while from their 
