44 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICUJLTURAL SOCIETY. 



will be limited to about 37 acres, and this is so small a portion 

 of ground that much inconvenience to the game interest is not 

 involved. Thinnings, which will before long become necessary in 

 some of the young woods, can be completed before 15th April. 

 Burning the coarse heather and other herbage is usually done in 

 February and March of the year before that in which the ground 

 is planted. Burning the "brush," or branches and tops left on 

 the ground after felling, can be carried out before 15th April 

 by the system of "feeding the fire"; and this plan should be 

 adhered to except in localities where, later in the season, fire can 

 be allowed to run over the ground without prejudice to the game; 

 but the gamekeeper's consent should be obtained in each such case 

 of late burning. There remains the question of keeping parts 

 of the young crops, up to six or seven years old, free from suppres- 

 sion by striking off the young shoots of brackens with a stick. This 

 operation, which is carried out between June and August, is very 

 strongly opposed by the gamekeepers, on account of the disturbance 

 it causes to the birds during the breeding season and while the broods 

 are still young. In future, when the felling of the younger woods has 

 been commenced, and when the ground is systematically restocked 

 immediately after the crop has been removed, there will be but few 

 brackens to impede the growth of the young trees; but even during 

 the period for which the present Plan provides, there will be very 

 little trouble from them after the bracken-covered portions (say 

 330 acres) of the younger plantations have grown up sufficiently to 

 suppress the objectionable growth, and after the bare ground, with 

 its 400 acres of brackens, has been restocked, and the crop on it has 

 attained the age of six or seven years. After that time, the ground 

 to be restocked annually will average only 37 acres ; and assuming 

 the bracken-covered area in the older woods to be 270 acres, it is 

 estimated that not more than, on an average, 60 or 70 acres of 

 brackens, now established beneath their open stock, need be under 

 treatment at one and the same time. The period during which the 

 greatest difficulty will be encountered is, then, that during which the 

 crops existing and to be raised on 330 acres of young plantations 

 and on 400 acres of ground now unstocked will be growing out of 

 danger from brackens, or, say, during the next fifteen years. These 

 730 acres will not all come under treatment at once. Brackens on 

 the unstocked area need not be taken in hand until the ground 

 they occupy is about to be planted up ; and, with a little help, the 

 existing young plantations will gradually outgrow and suppress the 



