THE PLANTING OF HIGH MOORLANDS. 5 
from the drains is utilised in place of being an encumbrance. 
There must be added the cost of preparing the soil used in 
planting, and a boy to carry it in baskets to the planters. 
The actual work of planting proceeds in Belgium as quickly as 
notching. 
I should be reluctant, without further trial, to advocate the 
system for whole plantations, though it is so used in Belgium, but 
I feel no doubt whatever that it will be of value in Scotland 
in making moorland plantations solid. It seems especially 
applicable to those spongy hollows which are found on most 
moors, and too often form gaps in plantations. Such hollows 
and flats, where the peat, permeated by burns and springs, 
contains layers of sand and grit, are very hopeful subjects for 
planting when drained, but are commonly covered with a 
close, matted herbage, in which notched plants rarely make 
satisfactory progress. To test the value of the part the 
prepared soil plays in the system, experiments have been made 
in Belgium of planting with slag alone and with soil alone, as well 
as with the mixture of both. The slag alone gives very poor 
results. The soil without slag has succeeded better, but the 
best results have followed the mixture of the two. This agrees 
with my own experience. Plants notched into peat with slag 
six years ago have done no better than those which were given 
none. But where the ground has been trenched, the addition 
of slag has always made a conspicuous difference.! 
There is probably as much still to be learnt about the kind of 
trees to plant on high ground as about the method of planting. 
The roots embedded in our high moorlands belong for the most 
part to vanished forests of Scots pine. Everyone has mused on 
the mysterious disappearance of these forests. Were they the 
victims of some great epidemic? The formation of peat is 
frequently attributed to their decay, but this theory does not 
tally with the fact that the largest roots are often found growing 
on deep beds of peat. It seems reasonable to suppose that 
Scots pine will grow again where it grew before. But it by no 
1 The method of planting described by the author has the further advantage 
of securing regularity of distribution, the lines of plants and the drains at the 
same time facilitating systematic inspection, ‘‘ beating up,” and other opera- 
tions, many of which are difficult, or even impossible, to carry out effectually 
without some such guides through the dense crop, especially during the 
period which must elapse before the lower branches die and fall.—Hon. Ep. 
