432 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



forest have scarcely a tree that has not suffered from the loss 

 of its leading shoot. Here, in the H arz, the loss from this cause 

 has been especially severe. The sylvicultural systems, etc., of 

 the district have been ably described by Professor Somerville 

 in the pamphlet previously referred to. Clear-fellings at 120 

 years are general, only the highest and most exposed parts being 

 raised under a shelter-wood. There is an interval of three 

 or four years between felling and restocking, which latter is 

 effected by " bunch planting " of seedling spruce, or, as is the 

 better practice, by using single plants of four years old. 



Hanover and Brunswick. 



Each year, at the end of the summer session of the colleges, 

 the students of the two Prussian foi-est academies, Eberswalde 

 and Miinden, engage in a joint excursion which lasts about a 

 fortnight. Last autumn the tour, under the leadership of Pro- 

 fessor Weise, was through some of the State forests of Hanover 

 and Brunswick. To see the progress that has been made in the 

 formation of forests upon the heath-linds of Liiaeburg was one 

 of the aims of the excursion. For this the district of Oerrel, 

 near Lintzel, was visited. The poor, heathery moorland has 

 been converted into capital young woods, the first planted of 

 which are now twenty-three years old. Scots pine and spruce 

 are in mixture of even age. Deep cultivation, by means of sub- 

 soil ploughing in strips, is found to be most efficacious. Sowings 

 and plantings have both succeeded, but the former are somewhat 

 better than the latter. The trees composing the older woods 

 have formed quite a dense canopy; the heather has been killed, 

 and by its decay and the fall of needles, the poor, sandy soil is 

 rapidly improving. It is doubtful ho w far the mixture of Scots 

 pine with spruce is advisable. In many parts they grow well 

 enough together ; but again in others the pine has grown so 

 much faster that it is quite suppressing the spruce, and yet, 

 because of its rather stunted form and branchy crown, the pine 

 is not benefiting itself. In places the Scots pine is being re- 

 moved, and the spruce allowed to remain as the permanent crop. 

 Owing to the cultivation being in broad strips, spruce has not 

 here the struggle which it usually has with heather. Its surface 

 roots are apt to get mixed up with the spreadiag heath, and it 

 may become suppressed if Scots pine is not there to more quickly 



