182 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
some of the drives near the older portions of the plantations, and 
these drives, we were told, had not been ploughed. In any case, 
ploughing could not be performed upon any great extent of moor- 
land in Scotland, the steep and rocky nature of our hill-sides in 
nearly all cases entirely precluding the use of the plough; but 
where it could be used upon land having pan, it would be a 
decided advantage to do so. The ploughing, as performed by the 
Germans, costs them about 20s. per acre. 
The plantations are laid out in sections of about 30 acres, 
having a ride of from 16 to 24 feet wide surrounding each section. 
A strip of about 18 feet on both sides of the ride is planted with 
birch and oak, the remainder of the section being planted with 
Scots fir, and, on the better class of soil, with oak. It costs about 
46s, to plant an acre with two-year seedlings of fir and spruce, 
and about 43s, to sow an acre with seed. The greater extent has 
been planted, only some 20 per cent. having been sown. 
We consider the idea of bordering the sections with birch and 
oak as a protection against fire a capital plan; and we noticed that 
where railways passed a wooded area, a pretty wide belt of birch 
was planted along their sides as a protection against fire. 
It struck us that the belts of birch at Lintzel, and, in some 
cases, along the sides of the railway, were too narrow to prevent 
fire passing through them ; but when one considers the flat nature 
of the ground, we can believe the belts are sufficient. We think 
that such belts running across the line of prevailing winds would 
be a great protection against wind as well as fire in some of our 
large Scots fir plantations in Scotland ; but, to be of service, such 
belts would require to be 40 to 50 yards wide. 
We have generally seen, wherever a fire occurs in a wood, that 
if there is a rise in the ground, such as a hill-side, the fire makes - 
its way up the hill much faster than it does on level ground. We 
therefore believe that it would be a wise precaution to plant several 
belts of birch or other hardwoods across the face of a hill, and to 
connect these cross-belts with other belts running up the face of the 
hill in any large plantation of fir or spruce. These belts need not 
necessarily be straight lines, and might be so laid off as to give a 
very good effect. 
Some portions of the young plantations at Lintzel are damaged 
by the caterpillar of the pine-shoot Zortriz moth. One section in 
particular we noticed, where very many of the plants had lost their 
leading shoot by this pest boring into the pith. 
