I00 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
employers had only given (and could only afford to give) a 
shade more for the cordwood than it had cost the buyer of 
the fall to cut and cord it, the vendor had got nothing at all 
for the cordwood. It therefore struck me rather forcibly that, 
as a matter of business, this was not a good transaction. I 
had then just read Mr Simpson’s work Zhe Mew Forestry, and 
this doubtlessly influenced me in coming to the conclusion that 
I had given the old system long enough trial, and that it was 
time to make a change. At that time I had 25 acres stored 
and offered for sale, the reserve price being #15 an acre, but 
that offer was refused. The opportunity seemed to me a good 
one for making the change (although the area was inconveniently 
large for a commencement), and I therefore offered it “to cut 
to the stool” at £20 per acre, an offer, which, after a time, 
was accepted. Assuming that the storage was in the usual 
proportion, and that ordinarily about three-fourths of the growing 
stuff had been cut at each fall, I had thus #5 an acre in 
hand to meet the cost of fencing against rabbits and replanting 
the ground: and the questions which now required to be settled 
were—what sort of fence ought to be put up? what kinds of 
trees ought to be planted? and on what system ought the 
planting to be done? The fence I adopted consisted of 2 feet 
of 2-inch mesh wire-netting, placed upright, with 1 foot of 
2-inch mesh netting laid on the ground (previously prepared with 
a grubbing-hoe) outside; and this was laced to the bottom 
of the upright netting with fine wire, and covered with the 
soil removed by the hoe. The upright netting was fixed to 
creosoted stakes, and above the netting were fixed, at 3 inches 
apart, a line of lightest barbed wire, and, on the top, a line of 
lightest strand wire, both of which were galvanised. The cost 
per acre, of course, varies with the area enclosed, but the 
average may be taken at £1 per acre; and if one’s neighbours 
do not cultivate rabbits too assiduously, the fence should be 
removable after the sixth year. 
The next point to settle was the system of planting. I 
decided to plant with some particular tree, which was at once 
valuable and suited to the soil and situation, at 12 feet apart, 
and to fill in with other kinds, so that no tree or stool 
should be more than 4 feet from its neighbour. The tree 
I selected for planting at 12 feet apart was common larch. 
As it was impossible to use a line, owing to the stool-shoots 
