THE FORMATION OF PLANTATIONS. 137 
it passes over the plantation. Here also thick planting should 
be strictly adhered to, as it is most essential for success. A 
shelter-belt should not be less than fifty yards wide, if density 
and comparative wind-exclusion are to be hoped for. It is even 
more imperative that the plantation should present a more or 
less convex side towards the prevailing winds. 
III. Planting on low-lying ground.—This embraces a wide and 
varied range of work. The mild climate of such situations gives 
a larger choice of trees to the planter, and with so many different 
soils and variety of aspects, a forester on a fairly large lowland 
estate has a most interesting variety of work to accomplish. He 
can carry out many scientific experiments with much practical 
advantage in such circumstances, and to the benefit of the 
plantations under his charge. 
These favoured localities might appropriately be called the 
home of the hardwoods. Larch also grows well, although perhaps 
a little too fast to be of first-class quality; and the newer conifer 
generally attain their finest dimensions. 
The luxuriant growth of the natural grasses is one of the most 
persistent evils to be guarded against, in planting on such sites ; 
and an inexperienced forester might make very serious mistakes 
in determining the size of the plants to be used, if he did not 
carefully examine the natural growth, and consider the matter 
fully before planting. 
On high and exposed ground, the enclosing and planting of 
land make little difference in the crop of herbage, but it is 
altogether different in the case under notice, where operations 
are generally on soil inclined to be rich and strong, and carrying 
a crop of the more luxuriant grasses. Such Jand is almost always 
regularly pastured, and the parts showing the smoothest sward 
are the very places—when stock is excluded—that grow the 
biggest crop of grass; take for instance Cocksfoot, a grass very 
plentiful on lowland pasture. This grass when eaten close in 
early spring and summer—and cattle eat it greedily—shows a 
level sward, but when stock is kept off for even one season, it 
becomes one of our tallest of grasses, almost equalling wheat in 
its height. Many like examples could be given, all showing that 
in such situations tall plants should invariably be used. A large 
plant to be healthy should have correspondingly large roots, and 
consequently the process of transplanting is to it a much greater 
shock than to a smaller one, but the moisture in the soil, and 
