FOREST OPERATIONS IN COUNTY GALWAY, IRELAND. 255 



The process of cultivation was as follows : — The ai'ea was 

 drained, so that the ditches divided it into strips 30 feet broad. 

 The ditches on each side of the strips were 2 feet deep, while the 

 main ditches were of sufficient depth to carry off the water. 

 During six years the surface layer of the soil was lightly burned, 

 and buckwheat grown. After the harvesting of the sixth crop, 

 the ditches were deepened to 3 feet, and each strip was divided 

 into two 15 feet broad strips by an additional ditch. The soil 

 taken out of the ditches was spread over the intervening areas. 

 Then forest trees were planted, especially oak, spruce, Scotch 

 pine, and later on also larch, Weymouth pine, and Austrian 

 pine, while birch appears in large numbers from seed brought 

 by the wind. 



The first forest plantation was made in 1868, so that it is now 

 twenty-seven years old ; the youngest is eight years old. 



These plantations did very well at first, so that very promising 

 results were expected. At the age of ten to twelve years, how- 

 ever, the trees began to fall off, and now it is clear that the whole 

 must be put down as a failure. The oaks have mostly dis- 

 appeared, and those which still exist are miserable specimens of 

 the species. The spruce also has done very badly. The Scotch 

 pine suffers dreadfully from the leaf-shedding disease, and from 

 the attacks of an insect (Betinia buoliana) ; in a few places it 

 has done better, where the bog is less deep, but even here it is 

 very branchy. Larch looked miserable in most parts, and only 

 fairly well in a few. Austrian pine, of which only a few speci- 

 mens existed, had done fairly well, but it had a very bushy 

 appearance. Weymouth pine had, up to an age of fifteen years, 

 done better than any of the above-mentioned pines. Best of all 

 had, no doubt, done birch. That tree was at first cut away, 

 because it threatened to interfere with tl e other species ; now it 

 is being sown in strips to replace them where they have failed. 



The result of my inspection of the Augustendorfer Bog is that 

 profitable forestry, without artificial manuring, is not practicable 

 on deep bogs. 



Burysittensen Boy. 



I next visited this bog, where I was told plantations have been 

 established on varying depths of bog-land. Here the land had 

 been drained by ditches 15 feet apart, and the species grown 

 wex-e the same as on the Augustendorfer Bog. The depth of bog 



