THE FORMATION OF PLANTATIONS. 1dey 
plants and insert them in the notch, the planter seeing that the 
roots are not twisted or doubled up before he withdraws his spade. 
The boys and women should be provided with aprons with large 
pockets for carrying the plants, the latter being supplied to them 
by others specially told off to carry the plants from the “sheugh” 
to the planters, so as to prevent the roots from long exposure to 
the sun and wind. 
In pit-planting much the same method is adopted as the fore- 
going, except that instead of making a notch, a small hole 
is taken out about a foot square; the boy holds the plant in 
the centre, while the planter fills in the finer soil immediately 
round the roots, leaving the worst for the top. In damp soils 
pitted plants are apt to be thrown out by the frost if planted in 
autumn, and are therefore best left until the spring. When 
planting hardwoods with coniferous nurses, they are often planted 
at their proper distances before or after the nurses, which simpli- 
fies matters for the planters and prevents mistakes. In all 
planting operations careful work should be encouraged before 
speed, and in very rough and stony ground it is better to take 
out a hole and remove the stones, than to squeeze and crush the 
roots into places where there is nothing to support them. 
Sowing in situ. 
The practice of sowing in situ, or sowing the seed on the spot in 
which it is intended to grow, is rarely resorted to in this country, 
and it has many disadvantages, compared with planting, on rough 
or waste ground. It might, however, be adopted in afforesting old 
arable land with hardwoods, such as oak or chestnut. The hard- 
wood seed should be sown in lines about 8 feet apart, or double 
that distance, if the ground is suitable for growing larch to a fair 
size, and the latter tree substituted between the hardwoods, as it is 
more valuable when young. ‘Two or three seeds should be sown or 
dibbled into each spot intended for the site of a tree, which should 
stand about 8 feet apart in the lines, thus allowing for contingencies 
in the shape of bad germination, damages by vermin, deformed 
plants, &c. If the ground be fairly clean, the intervening spaces 
might be sown thinly with larch seed, but if dirty, it would stand 
in great danger of being smothered before it attained any size, and 
planting would be preferable, the plants being put in about 3 feet 
apart. Spruce and Scots fir might also be used if the ground were 
unsuitable for larch, but the latter tree being double the value of 
