I42 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
with the excavated peaty soil. The basic slag costs about 1s. 
per rooo plants, and as the cost of the spruce is put down at 
6s. 8d. per 1000, and the planting at about 5s. per rooo, the 
total cost is r2s. 8d. per 1000. The spruce are planted at about 
7 feet x 5 feet apart, and thus we have a row of spruce plants on 
each side of the drain, and a vacant space between the drains. 
Nothing further is done for ten years, and at the end of this 
period the intervening spaces are planted with pure spruce, 
according to the customary distance of 3 feet apart. When this 
planting up comes to be done, great benefit is derived from the 
shelter produced by the double row of spruce planted ten years in 
advance, and, in addition to these double rows of spruce, strips of 
common spruce mixed with Weymouth pine (Pinus Strobus), 
white spruce (/icea alba), red spruce (Picea rubra), Swiss stone 
pine (Pinus Cembra), white alder (Alnus incana), or birch, at 
4 feet apart, are often planted on the south and west bound- 
aries, which are exposed to gales, as wind-breaks. In this we had 
an excellent object-lesson in the way of planting large tracts of 
exposed waste land by forming barriers against the prevailing 
winds with a hardy species, and by producing shelter by 
means of rows of hardy shelter-trees planted in advance of the 
main crop. 
On Tuesday, 15th August, the party left Spa for Rochefort, the 
communal woods of which town were to be next visited. The 
day was a great national holiday, consequently a long time was 
occupied in the railway journey; but to those of us who were 
fortunate enough to find ourselves in the same compartment with 
our guide, Monsieur Crahay, the long journey proved rather an 
advantage than otherwise, for we received much interesting and 
valuable information from him regarding the geology and sylvi- 
culture of the country through which we passed. The advan- 
tages of planting belts of hardy species in advance, and afterwards 
filling up with the crop proper, were again and again demon- 
strated ; and one of the most interesting items of information 
which M. Crahay had to impart to us was that, in Flanders, it 
paid very well to plant Scots pine at 14 feet apart, and clear-cut 
the crop for fuel at ten or fifteen years of age. At many places 
en route we saw large stacks of faggots, such as one often sees 
in dealers’ yards in Kent; and these, we were informed, are used 
in the roofs of the mines for preventing small stones from falling 
down. 
