42 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
planting, each man should plant at most only two species. This 
saves confusion, as each man knows exactly where each particular 
kind of tree should be put. When pit-planting is being carried 
on, if the holes are opened beforehand, the foreman should lay 
the different kinds in the holes in advance of the planters. 
9. Shelter-Belts—When forming large plantations, a belt of 
strong, deep-rooting, wind-resisting trees should always be planted 
round the margin of the wood. This, should the plantation 
consist principally of shallow-rooted conifers, will provide it 
with shelter from severe gales, which play havoc with exposed 
woods. The breadth of the belt should be about 12 yards, and 
it should be planted on the outside with beech, hornbeam, 
Corsican pine, and on the inside with silver fir, oak, and 
sycamore. These belts should always be well thinned to allow 
individual trees to develop branches over the greater part of the 
stem. When planted a few years in advance, these belts form, 
of course, a better protection for the young plants needing 
shelter. 
II. MAINTENANCE FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER PLANTING. 
1. Beating-up and Cleaning.—During the second season the 
plantation should be gone over and all blanks filled. For two or 
three years after planting, all surface-growth, such as bracken, 
brambles, gorse, broom, grass, etc., should be cut back once or 
sometimes twice in the season. 
2. Protection against Game, Vermin, and Fungous Diseases.— 
[The remarks under this head are here omitted, as merely being generalities, 
to be found in any text-book on Forestry, about rabbits, hares, and squirrels ; 
the pine-weevil, the pine-beetle, the oak-tortrix, and the spruce-bark beetle ; 
the larch-canker, the pine-rot, the common agaric, and the canker of broad- 
leaved trees. No attempt has been made to give special details for any given 
case, or to describe anything in the nature of practical work, as is especially 
desired in this class of essay. —Hon. Eb. ] 
3. Thinning.—The first thinning may require to be done from 
about the tenth to the fifteenth year after planting, according to 
the growth of the trees and the composition of the plantation. 
It should simply consist in going over the woods and taking out 
suppressed, diseased, or dead trees; but when larch has been 
mixed with oak or other slow-growing hardwoods, it requires to 
be gone over about the tenth year, in order to prevent the latter 
