CONTINENTAL NOTES GERMANY. 45 



with side roots, many of which were overlaid, doubled up and 

 wounded, growing in two directions only, whereas in more 

 rationally grown young trees the tap-root was much better 

 developed, and was, from the first year's growth, entirely 

 surrounded by numerous side roots. 



Splettfloesser gives, amongst many, an interesting example 

 which is worth quoting. On a forest soil, in a locality very 

 favourable to the growth of grass, Scots pine was sown some 

 twenty-five years ago ; it germinated irregularly, and many of 

 the young seedlings were smothered. During the next and the 

 following years, the blanks were restocked with notch-planted 

 yearlings. The original seed-grown pines have reached an 

 average height of 8 metres, with a 14-centimetre diameter, and a 

 tap-root 2'5 metres long; whereas the notch-planted trees are 

 at least 3 metres shorter, with a diameter of only 4 centimetres, a 

 tap-root only 0-5 metres long, and a two-sided root development. 

 On waste lands this two-sided root development causes an 

 earlier and more certain death than usual ; but even on forest 

 soils, though the young trees make the most strenuous efforts 

 to regain that balance which nature intends them to have, they 

 but rarely grow into structurally valuable timber, and are always 

 more liable to be blown down than trees grown with an all- 

 round development of side roots. Splettfloesser concludes his 

 indictment with the, perhaps a little overdrawn, but generally 

 just, statement: "If 15,000 pine yearlings are notch-planted per 

 hectare, there will be 15,000 young trees with a two-sided root 

 development, 15,000 with more or less twisted, overlaid, and 

 wounded roots, 15,000 stricken by chronic infirmity." Taking 

 everything into consideration, the cost of repeatedly filling up 

 blanks, the inferiority in size and quality of the material 

 produced, the probability of lowering the productive power of 

 the forest soil, and the possibility of ruining it permanently, 

 notch-planting is, unquestionably, the most penny wise and pound 

 foolish silvicultural method ever introduced.^ 



In numerous forest divisions in Germany and Austria, 

 planting with a hollow borer has been adopted, mainly because 

 it is considerably cheaper than planting in holes dug with the 

 spade. The best known amongst the various instruments of 

 this kind used are " Heyers Hohlbohrer " and the " Jansa." 

 This latter is an Austrian invention, and is very widely used in 



1 See page iii. 



