156 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of earth-slips. This part of the woods, close to the town and 
within easiest reach by foot, offers the greatest variety of broad- 
leaved trees, the paler green of whose foliage contrasts well with 
the darker green of the numerous interspersed patches of firs 
and pines; but, for the forester, some of the most interesting 
parts are perhaps a few stretches of 150-year-old spruce and 
Scots pine in picturesque groups, throughout which are scattered 
small patches of 20-year-old spruce intermixed with beech, oak, 
maples, birch, and mountain-ash. Towards the south of this 
zone, near “Lord Findlater’s Temple,” there is also a very 
interesting wood of beech, about 150 to 200 years old, inter- 
mixed with Scots pine, spruce, and silver fir, growing on a steep 
slope with southern exposure. Here only moribund trees are 
felled, or diseased stems which might possibly be dangerous to 
pedestrians during high wind. In fact, throughout the whole 
of this first or inner zone, only trees that are over-mature, 
diseased, or physically weak are removed in favour of those 
left standing and of the younger growth which will gradually 
replace the existing stock. 
The second zone, comprising the remaining 2475 acres of the 
town-woods, extends beyond the inner zone to a total breadth of 
from 2 to 24 miles from E. to W., and a length of from about 
1 to 2 miles from N. to S. up the valley of the Tepl. In this 
section, which also contains numerous vantage-points and out- 
look towers (‘‘ Russel’s Seat,” “The Virgin’s Image,” “ Belvedere,” 
*« Abild,” etc.), the woods chiefly consist of coniferous trees, 
interspersed here and there with stretches of beech on the 
hill-sides, and broken up by small meadows where the water- 
courses run through level parts. On the plateaux there are good 
mixed woods of spruce, silver fir, and Scots pine, while on the 
hill-sides there is also an intermixture of beech, forming up to 
about one-fifth of the crop. The finest growth is to be found in 
the block Ploben, that forming the extreme southern portion of 
the town-woods, where there are old crops of pure silver fir, 
spruce, and Scots pine, the latter of which have been under- 
planted with the two former kinds in order to protect the soil from 
deterioration. Planting is usually done at distances of 44 to 6 
feet apart, with stout transplants. Here too, however, much has 
been done to create pleasing mixtures of these evergreen conifers 
and of beech, the latter sometimes forming well over one-third of 
the whole crop, while poor agricultural land bought within the 
