THE PLANTING OF WASTE LAND FOR PROFIT. 277 
upon clay; but such land is usually only suitable for conifers 
and softwoods. 
On hillsides from 500 to tooo feet in elevation planting 
may sometimes be more profitable than arable cultivation or 
pasturage. Their soil is mostly light, fairly good, and well 
suited for larch, Douglas fir, and Weymouth pine, the quickest 
growing and most profitable conifers, as also for other pines, 
spruce, and silver fir, while at lower positions the soil is often 
good enough both for hardwoods and softwoods. 
6. What will be the Probable Cost of Planting Waste Land, 
and what are the Prospective Returns from the Thinnings and the 
Mature Timber-Crops ?@—Planting now costs much more than 
it used to. From 3os. to 4os. per acre, it has now, in many 
cases, risen to from £4 to £6, and even £6 to £8 per acre. 
Plants and labour now cost about twice as much as formerly ; 
and rabbits are also so universal and destructive that the 
necessary wire-netting against this pest may add considerably 
to the cost of planting, and may in many cases swallow up 
any profit otherwise obtainable from growing timber. Conifers 
are usually cheaper to plant than broad-leaved trees. If the 
land is light, and requires little or no draining or special 
clearing, the cost of notching at 3 ft. by 3 ft. (4840 per acre), 
7.e., the cost of plants and planting only, exclusive of draining, 
clearing weeds, fencing, rabbit-wiring, or filling blanks, would 
be about £3 per acre; and this may be taken as about the 
minimum cost at which it is now possible to plant, if the plants 
have to be purchased from a nursery. 
But it will seldom be found possible to plant at anything like 
so cheap a rate. The land will probably often need drainage, 
clearance of heather and furze, trenching, or other soil-prepara- 
tion, which all mean additional cost; and a stronger and dearer 
class of plant, with a more expensive method of planting, will 
usually also be necessary. Taking the general average of 
unimproved waste land suitable for planting, an estimate of 
46 to £7 per acre (including beating up blanks for first two 
years, but not including rabbit-wiring) is not likely to be far 
wrong for the planting of conifers, mostly of Scots pine, spruce, 
larch, Douglas fir, Weymouth pine, and silver fir in mixed 
woods, planted in patches, and will also cover the cost of 
planting hardwoods and softwoods on good land requiring less 
drainage, but more clearing and soil-preparation. 
VOL. XIX. PART II. T 
