40 TRANSACTIONS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



employ on such ground, scores, 2-year seedlings or i-year i-year 

 transplants being used, i-year i-year larches, and 2-year i-year 

 pines and spruces are used for spade planting into the prepared 

 pits. 



The old axiom, " Plant before Martinmas and ensure success, 

 plant after Candlemas and entreate it," is good. Personally, 

 I prefer autumn planting for high altitudes, because there the 

 weather conditions are generally more favourable in autumn 

 than in spring, and the good weather allows of a better and 

 longer day's work being done ; also, if the plants are put out 

 during the autumn they get established, and the soil gets washed 

 into the crevices, and becomes more solidified and less liable to 

 crack and open up during dry weather in summer. If planting 

 is left over until the spring, there is a probability of more 

 unsettled weather, and the risk of a drought in early summer, 

 which, coming on plants recently put out, may open up the 

 notch and lay some of the roots bare to the drying effects of 

 the atmosphere, and thus often cause, death. Again, plants 

 taken from a nursery, where they have been more or less 

 sheltered, are apt to come early into leaf and thus run more 

 risk from the spring frosts. 



Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, and it would not 

 be advisable to plant wet ground or peat in the autumn. Such 

 ground can be planted in spring with better results. I have 

 planted spruce on peat land in May with perfect success. 



I find that small plants have several advantages over large 

 ones. 2-year seedling plants can be purchased at from los. to 

 i2S, per thousand, while 2-year 2-year plants, which I know are 

 largely used throughout the length and breadth of the land, 

 cost from 15s. to 30s. per thousand. A man can plant mere 

 seedlings in a day than he can 2-year 2-year plants ; and the 

 work is better done with the small plants, as on rough and 

 stony ground it is often difficult to get sufficiently large holes 

 made in which to insert the larger ones, and they, therefore, 

 cannot be so firmly planted. Again, on high and exposed 

 situations, the violence of the winter storms is often so severe 

 as to practically blow the plants out by the roots. I have often 

 seen large Scots fir plants blown down by the wind ; the reason 

 being that the Scots fir, which retains its leaves, or needles, for 

 several years before shedding them, is heavy headed in pro- 

 portion to its roots, which are more or less broken every time 



