134 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Corporation at Swinsty Hall, now used as the forester's house. 

 It is a charming old country house built between the years 1575 

 and 1590, and contains some fine Elizabethan oak panelling. 

 The stained window panes bear the date 1627. After lunch 

 the circuit of the reservoirs was completed, and a number of 

 other plantations inspected, also the nursery. The latter is 

 situated at Gill's Beck, at an elevation of 600 feet, and extends 

 to about 6 acres. The aspect is north-east. Here most of the 

 plants used on the area are raised. Hardwood seeds are 

 collected in the neighbourhood and sown in bands 9 inches wide 

 and 15 inches apart, the drills being made with the hoe after 

 digging over. Conifer seeds are sown in raised beds 3 feet 

 6 inches wide, with weeding alleys 18 inches wide. Narrow 

 drills are made across the beds with marking boards, and the 

 seeds are sown by hand. Seedlings are generally lined out at 

 2 years old, and allowed to stand in the lines for one or two 

 years before planting out. Black Italian poplar is planted out 

 as 2-year rooted cuttings. On vacant ground vetches are grown 

 and dug in for green manure. At present the beds are being 

 summer fallowed, as they become vacant, in order to clear the 

 land of couch grass and sorrel, which have spread during the war. 

 Up to the present about 1000 acres have been afforested. 

 The general idea is to grow hardwoods for the final crop 

 on the rich grass land and conifers on the moorland. Hard- 

 woods, principally oak and beech, are planted either pure or 

 with larch and Scots pine as nurses. When planted with 

 nurses the hardwoods may be in lines 16 feet by 4 feet, as 

 in Primrose Cottage Plantation, East, filled in with larch nurses 

 at 4 feet apart ; or, as in the west end of this plantation, 

 beech is planted at 8 feet apart and filled in with Japanese larch 

 to 4 feet. In either case hardwoods form only a quarter of the 

 plants used, as shown in the following diagram : — 



0000 BJBJ 



I^ L L L J J J J 



LLLL BJBJ 



L L L L J J J J 



O = Oak : L = Larch. B = Beech ; J = Jap. larch. 



But one would expect a better balanced crown from the 

 second than from the first method of planting. The earlier 

 plantations were planted at 3 to 3^ feet, which had increased 



