74 TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Ill the land I hold there is a small swamp. It has a 

 depth of from 2 to 5 feet (and more in places) of liquid mud ; 

 below the mud is solid rock. Into this cattle and sheep 

 occasionally strayed, and had to be salvaged with ropes and 

 imprecations. I sawed off long branches of the black poplar, 

 8 feet or 10 feet long, sawing on the slant to give a point to 

 the butt, and plunged them into the mud as far as they would 

 go, or till they reached the rock. They never went back in 

 growth for a day, and are now fair-sized trees, as well as the 

 willows I treated similarly. As the ground became firmer there 

 were added ash, sycamore, etc., and trespass has been barred. 



This is not quite all the benefit. A path was needed through 

 the swamp, and for years I had poured in every sort of rubbish, 

 which naturally disappeared rapidly in the swamp. But when 

 the poplars and willows began to grow, their roots interlaced 

 themselves under the pathway and formed a sufficient network 

 to retain the stones, old tins, bottles, oddments and cinders, 

 which are now a solid path. 



There must be very many areas, small and large, in Scotland 

 which would well repay the slight labour involved in this 

 treatment. Slips of poplar can be of any length and of a 

 thickness up to that of a man's thigh. In fact the longer and 

 thicker they are the better, in order to obtain quick results, 

 provided the soil is sufficiently and constantly moist — apparently 

 it cannot be too wet to arrest growth — and its surface is 

 continually raised, and to some extent dried and rendered 

 firmer, by the humus annually deposited. 



Martin Martin, 

 Lieut. -Colonel. 



REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Tree Wounds and Diseases^ their Prevention and Treatment, 

 with Special Chapter 07i Fruit Trees. By A. D. Webster. 

 London : Williams & Norgate. 



The author's reasons for writing this book are: (r) that no 

 work of a similar kind has been published; (2) that numerous 

 inquiries as to the treatment of tree wounds and diseases suggest 

 that such a book is required ; and (3) the writer's knowledge of 

 the subject, the result of many years' practical work and 



