I'ORESTRV DEVELOPMENTS AT CRAUiSTONE. 55 



all that could be desired. The species sown are chiefly Scots 

 pine, spruce, and larch, along with a few beds of Douglas fir and 

 Japanese larch. The weeding was done by girl students from 

 the Training Centre and the University during their summer 

 vacation. There were ten of these girls, and they lived in the 

 bothy at the home farm, doing their own cooking and providing 

 for themselves. They worked seven hours a day, from 7.30 

 to 3.30, and were employed from the beginning of July to 

 September, when the need for weeding ceased. Their work 

 was entirely satisfactory, and they were keenly interested in the 

 nursery. In addition to the seedlings, there are in the nursery 

 several thousand plants of Sitka spruce, Douglas fir. Thuja 

 gigantea, Tsuga Alberti'ana, which were purchased from out- 

 side nurseries and lined-out in the spring-time as 2-year old 

 seedlings. Next year it is intended to extend greatly the present 

 area of seed-beds, and two or three years hence, the whole of 

 the seedlings will be lined-out in a large field adjoining the 

 present nursery. 



No planting has as yet been done on the estate, but a grant 

 has been sanctioned by the Development Commissioners for a 

 forest garden of 30 acres. A strip on the north side of the main 

 woodland area, of about 30 acres in extent, has been reserved for 

 this purpose and will be laid out in sections, r acre or half an 

 acre in extent, for the carrying out of experiments on such 

 subjects as heredity, manuring, the ascertaining of the 

 behaviour under silvicultural conditions of species whose com- 

 mercial value is not yet clearly established, and others 

 which can be appropriately carried out on plots of this size. 

 In the west wood area it is also proposed to retain compact 

 areas of mature and middle-aged woods (which will be heavily 

 thinned and under-planted), in order that students may be afforded 

 facilities for the measuring of timber and for demonstrating on a 

 small scale felling and thinning operations. The remainder of the 

 woodland area will be planted up with small pure woods or plots, 

 5 or 6 acres in extent, intended to demonstrate the growth and 

 development of a number of species into timber under conditions 

 comparable to those which would exist in an ordinary forest. 



The Craibstone woods are, of course, intended primarily for 

 the instruction of students attending the forestry classes of the 

 College, but in the near future they are also to be used for the 

 training of a number of returned soldiers desiring to take up 



