REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY. 123 



the carting, the plants, the draining, the wire, and the whole 

 thing 1 " " It depends very much on the size of the inclosure. If it 

 is a large inclosure it can be done much more cheaply than a small 

 one. In one plantation out of a number that we made, I have the 

 details here. It was nearly 900 acres in extent. It was fenced 

 with six wires and wooden straining and intermediate posts. The 

 straining posts were put in wherever they were required, at dis- 

 tances 60 to 100 yards, and sometimes 120 yards apart, and the 

 intermediate posts were six feet apart. The cost of that was 

 £259, 10s. 2d. Then we planted 2,826,000 Scots fir. They were 

 one year seedlings, two years transplanted, or two years seedlings, 

 one year transplanted ; that is, the same age (three years old), 

 but differently treated. Then there were 111,000 of larch, and 

 50,000 of others, principally spruce. We have our own nursery, but 

 the trees were charged the same as if tbey had been bought, some 

 6s. or 7s. a thousand for the Scots fir. That came to £651, 6s. 

 The expense of carting the plants from the nursery and planting 

 them was £328, 19s. lid., and for drains, £64, 8s. 4d., making a 

 total of £1304, 4s. 5d., or somewhere about 30s. an acre." 



" Have you read the evidence given before this Committee of the 

 last year and the year before ? " " Partly." — " What are your 

 views with regard to the cpiestion of a school of forestry?" "It 

 would be all the better if there could be a school of forestry. If 

 they had the theoretical as well as the practical part, it would be 

 all the better for foresters." — " You have had some experience of 

 training young men on the estate as foresters 1" "I have trained 

 a large number." — " Do they come to you as apprentices or merely 

 as labourers on the estate ? " " Tliey are labourers and apprentices 

 at the same time. They stay with us two or three years, and then 

 we generally get some other employment for them as foremen or as 

 foresters." — " Do you think if that system were generally adopted, 

 it would, to a great extent, supply the information which is re- 

 quired 1 " " Yes ; at the same time it would be all the better if 

 there were a higher school where they could get more instruction 

 than could be given on private properties." — " They would get the 

 practice on the private properties, and they would get more of the 

 theory at the schools 1 " " Yes." 



" Have you a theory of your own as regards the question of re- 

 production of trees. Have you noticed that where trees are 

 frequently planted in the same soil there is a tendency to decay ? " 

 "Yes. There is the decayed vegetable matter of former crops of 



