1 6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The first year's seedlings are very small and shallow-rooted, and 

 unless some protection is given to the beds the whole crop may 

 easily be ruined from either cause. The common practice of 

 lining the sides of the beds with 9-inch boards and stretching a 

 covering of tiffany or very thin packsheet overhead is usually a 

 sufficient precaution, the covering being used only when necessary. 

 In the second or third year the seedlings should be lined out in 

 nursery plots, and there grown on for one or two years more, by 

 which time they become sufficiently strong to be put out to the 

 forest. If the ground to be planted is bare of herbage, 2- or 

 3-year seedlings may be notched or dibbled into the ground 

 by the planting-spade or hand-iron ; but if rank herbage 

 exists, and pitting is necessary, 4- or 5-year-old plants may be 

 used in order to save the expense of repeated cleaning from 

 rank growth. 



So far, Sitka spruce has, on this estate, proved immune from 

 attack by insect or fungoid pests ; but it would perhaps be too 

 much to hope that it will always remain so, and therefore, 

 failure should not be courted by planting it on sites such as are 

 known for the time being to be infested with pine weevil, or 

 where fungoid diseases, parasitic on the spruce tribe generally, 

 are prevalent. 



The conclusions arrived at, as the result of a study of the 

 habit of the Sitka spruce over a wide area and under varying 

 conditions of management, may be summarised as follows: — (i) 

 it is suitable for afforesting exposed sites, in humid localities, 

 such as occur in various parts of the kingdom, and particularly 

 in the Scottish highlands; (2) grown in high-forest, it has great 

 productive capacity and yields a high quality of timber ; (3) it 

 enjoys practical immunity from attack by insect and by fungoid 

 pests. 



These qualities, combined with the great size it attains, tend 

 to make the Sitka spruce in this country what it is recognised to 

 be in its native habitat, " The largest of all the spruces and of 

 great commercial importance." 



