86 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



debris on the ground, the rough-shod dying out of trees in the 

 pole Stage can be almost entirely prevented. 



Erdmann, the past-master of heather land aflforestation, has 

 practised on these lines for a good many years with unparalleled 

 success. All such operations mean a certain outlay, as during 

 the earlier periods no income at all is derived, for none of the 

 twigs must be removed for litter, and even at a somewhat more 

 advanced age the sale of the thin poles will not repay the cost 

 of labour. The loss involved, which with careful management 

 need not be excessive per hectare of afforestation, must be 

 regarded in the light of an insurance for the future. It will pay 

 in the end. 



The invasion of the thinnedout afforestation by obnoxious 

 weeds is a danger, specially pronounced in the heather climate 

 of North-West Germany, which has next to be combated. Here 

 again Erdmann leads the van amongst practical foresters. His 

 afforestation, in which he underplanted the pine with beech, is 

 a living picture more convincing than any amount of writing 

 and argument. In the Oerrel Lintzel forests, an area of several 

 hundred acres, chiefly composed of grey sand overlying a 

 former Ortstone formation, the ground shines with the vivid 

 green of young beech under a well-grown and healthy pine pole 

 forest of thirty to thirty-five years of age. Erdmann is an 

 almost fanatical supporter of the beech, on which, he maintains, 

 the future of the forest in the north-west heather lands depends. 

 He ascribes the failure in the expected results of underplanting 

 with beech to the fact that the operations were started too late, 

 when the mineral soil was already too deeply covered by moss, 

 weeds, heather or dry peat. In such cases the living surface 

 cover must be removed and the dead mixed with the soil. This 

 may be conveniently effected by a small size of the Geist-Kaehler 

 Wuehl-grubber. 



Albert agrees in every respect with Erdmann's opinions, 

 which are based on practical results achieved by himself and his 

 followers, and says that in accordance with his analysis of the 

 soils in these heather tracts there is hardly a place, with the 

 exception of moor soils, where beech could not be successfully 

 cultivated under the protection of pine. Albert thinks that 

 other valuable soil-improving species might with advantage be 

 added to the beech, such as silver fir, larch, Douglas fir and 

 others. In this Erdmann acquiesces, but emphatically protests 



