48 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



roots, and comprising both forest land and waste, a fairly 

 accurate estimate of the cost can be gathered from the records. 

 The scale of wages for unskilled labour is low in West Prussia — 

 two shillings a day of ten hours for men, and half that sum for 

 women. As planting with the borer requires no particular 

 strength, women are almost exclusively employed on this work 

 in Rohrwiese. If the conditions of soil and weather are 

 particularly favourable, one woman can make 1200 bore holes a 

 day, and a second can plant them up, especially if they change 

 about. However this is by no means usual, and though, as a 

 matter of fact, 17-5 hectares have been planted for 18 shillings per 

 hectare, exclusive of the cost of the plants and their transport, 

 the average cost works out to 55 shillings the hectare for old 

 forest soil, full of roots, and to 31 shillings for waste land, bored 

 to a depth of 45 centimetres. Even these rates are over 30 per 

 cent, less than the cost of planting in spade-dug holes. 



Considering that there are practically no failures, this method 

 is probably the cheapest of all, and is well worth a trial in this 

 country.^ The same instrument, slightly modified so as to give 

 room for the upper growth of the plant, can be used to take up 

 seedlings, with 20 centimetres of the original soil, in the same way 

 as the Jansa. Planting in this way has the advantage that it 

 requires no skill whatsoever ; but it is somewhat more expensive, 

 mainly on account of the transport of the planting material. 

 Though, by using the Rohrwieser hollow borer, the deeper bore 

 hole can be filled with rich surface soil and manure up to 20 

 centimetres from the surface, the local authorities prefer planting 

 with naked roots, but then they have by this time a trained, 

 skilled planting staff at their disposal. 



3. On Mixed Forests. 



The following statement was made by Erdmann at a recent 

 sitting of the North-West German Forest Union : — -" No pure 

 coniferous forests exist in the North-West of Germany, which 

 have retained the same degree of perfection, through two, much 

 less three or four rotations, with the same species." Similar 

 complaints regarding the gradual deterioration of pure forests 

 come from the Harz Mountains, and from other parts of Prussia, 

 and remain uncontradicted and unchallenged. 



[1 We hope to see it tried in the Plantations at Inverliever. — Hon. Ed.] 



