64 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
consider the cases and conditions under which the latter system 
may be most advantageously adopted, and to look as shortly 
as may be at the best means of attaining the end in view. 
Speaking generally, it may be said that the fulfilment of the 
following conditions would chiefly influence the adoption of 
natural regeneration in preference to artificial restocking. 
1. Where the state of the surface of the ground is such as 
to offer the conditions requisite for a good seed-bed without the 
aid of any artificial preparation. This consideration gains 
additional weight when the financial condition of the estate is 
such as to make the restriction of all outlay to the very minimum 
almost a necessity, as well as in cases where the quality or value 
of the timber is so low that, in order to get even a small balance 
on the right side, the expenses must be kept down to the lowest 
point. In outlying districts, also, where the cost of conveyance 
reduces the profits within very narrow limits, it frequently 
happens that the only way to secure any return at all from the 
woodlands is to avoid all outlay in their formation. 
The cases where no artificial aid is required to bring the 
surface of the ground into a suitable condition for the reception 
and germination of the seed are, comparatively speaking, few, and 
are for the most part only to be looked for in close well-managed 
woods of shade-bearing trees (beech, silver fir, etc.), and then 
only if the trees are not too old, and in the absence of destructive 
gales. In many other cases, no doubt, a patchy imcomplete 
stocking may be looked for, but that perfect regularity in the 
distribution of the young plants, which has so much to do with 
the future success of the wood (and a considerable departure from 
which must bring, at least, partial failure), is attained without 
artificial preparation of the ground in very few cases indeed. 
If weeds must be removed, and the surface broken by means of 
hand implements before a good seed-bed is secured, the expense 
incurred is frequently much greater than the cost of stocking by 
means of planting. 
2. On steep, bare, rocky declivities, and in high exposed 
situations, the system of clear-felling one crop of timber, and 
then restocking the denuded area by artificial means, admits of 
serious loss, occasioned by the washing action of rains and melted 
snow during the time that the surface is destitute of trees, or 
before the young generation has developed sufficiently to shade 
the ground, Especially undesirable is it to clear-fell a wood 
