4 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
length of the drain. Larger ditches which may be required to 
carry off the water are, of course, not included in this calculation. 
Now as to planting. The turfs are left for a year. By that 
time the ground has begun to dry, the turfs have sunk consider- 
ably, and the herbage below them has begun to decay. They 
are not good subjects for notching, as the notches would be apt 
to gape in dry weather. But they are very good subjects for 
what may be called miniature pit-planting. A heap is made 
of the best soil or gravel available near the spot, and this, if 
pure, is mixed with basic slag, about half an ounce of slag to the 
cubic foot of soil. The planter cuts a circular plug from the centre 
a of each turf with a long-handled plant- 
ing trowel (see Illustration), leaving a 
hole deep enough to allow the roots 
of the young plant to be spread out 
to their full depth. In this hole the 
tree is planted with two small hand- 
fuls of the prepared soil, while the 
plug is broken up to fill in the top. 
Trees planted in this fashion seem 
to suffer little more interruption in 
their growth than would be occasioned 
by a move from one part of the nursery 
to another. The extra expense is 
partly made up by the use of smaller 
plants, which soon outgrow larger 
plants which have been notched into 
natural surfaces five or six years 
earlier. On the Belgian moors, where 
they plant little except spruce, these 
The cross handle is of wood— are usually four years old (two years 
Te in the seed-bed, and two years trans- 
planted). But Scots pine, two years 
old, would be quite suitable for the 
purpose, and could be taken straight from the nursery if they 
had not been sown too thick. 
There is nothing startlingly new about the system. Its merit 
lies in its nicely calculated adjustment of methods already well 
known. ‘The extra cost of making the ground ready for planting 
is not great. Indeed, where close draining is necessary, there 
is no extra expense, the only difference being that the output 
ee a 
sl OTA 
“ 
10 
‘ 
Seana 2 
PLANTING TOOL USED IN 
BELGIUM. 
