174 FORMATION OF PLANTATIONS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT, 
immature or unhealthy trees, we cannot expect from them to gain a 
healthy and unaffected progeny. The reasoning on the question 
amounts to this: If we sow seeds obtained from a healthy tree of 
proper age and condition for giving off a good offspring, we procure 
good healthy plants; while, on the other hand, if we sow seeds 
collected from trees of opposite conditions, we are rewarded with a 
progeny of vastly inferior quality ; hence arises the question, Which 
of these two classes of plants will we select for the formation of a 
plantation? Reason and common sense teach us that if we wish to 
raise a healthy and profitable crop we must, in the first place, select 
plants that are well-rooted, healthy, and free from hereditary 
blemish. It undoubtedly affords the proprietor, and also his forester, 
a great amount of satisfaction, when he is able to collect, on his own 
estate, all the seeds he requires from trees in such a condition as he 
considers best for giving otf a good and healthy reproduction. Such 
cases, however, are the exception, not the rule. From various 
causes it is not easy, within the compass of one estate, to find all 
our common forest trees in such condition as to make it desirable 
to reproduce them. With nurserymen, however, the case is diffe- 
rent. Their operations being extensive, they do not confine them- 
selves to one estate or locality ; hence they are able to procure the 
various seeds from trees growing under the most advantageous 
conditions. As a consequence, good plants can be obtained at the 
public nurseries at such reasonable prices that it would be question- 
able economy to expend time and money in the collection, prepara- 
tion, and sowing of home-grown seeds from which to raise the 
future plantations on the estate. The system of raising plants 
from home-grown seeds is, when judiciously practised, very con- 
mendable ; and, experimentally, it is practised on the majority of 
estates throughout the country ; but, except in the case where the 
estates are very large and the operations extensive, it is not advis- 
able to practise the system beyond the limited bounds of experiment. 
The system now most generally practised is to procure one-year or 
two-year seedling plants from the public nurseries, and to have 
them conveyed to a home nursery on the estate on which they are 
intended to be grown. By remaining there one, two, or three 
years, as may be considered necessary, they become acclimatised to 
the neighbourhood, and are rendered less liable to receive injury 
from climatic influences when placed out in the plantation than 
plants that have been reared at a distance. The home nursery 
should be dry and airy, sheltered but not confined, and consisting 
