260 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. Lxvi. 



done by rabbits. Many of the large landowners received 

 2s, 2d. to 2s. 4d. per pair for rabbits sent to some large 

 centre of Manchester, and the result was that the rabbits 

 were allowed to multiply to such an extent that scarcely a 

 single tree — ^in woods from thirty to sixty years old — but 

 had its roots a mass of rabbit burrows. The result of the 

 presence of these burrows was the stunting of the tree. 



From my experience I am convinced that were rabbits 

 strictly kept out of plantations, the tree crop at the end of 

 forty years would be as good as one at seventy where 

 rabbits were numerous. 



There was a long narrow strip of ground which it was 

 desired to convert into a belt-plantation in order to shut 

 out a view of the interior as quickly as possible, and a 

 large area of grass-land had to be planted with clumps of 

 conifers. The land was of a very poor nature — a few inches 

 of soil on the top, all underneath being shingly, with a little 

 clay running through it. 



Our mode of procedure was to trench the ground thirty 

 inches deep during the summer, and in the autumn we 

 planted the following trees and shrubs : — Abies Douglasi, 

 A. grandis, Nordmaniana, magnifica, Cupressus Lawsoniana, 

 and Thujopsis dolchrala, these were planted about thirty 

 feet apart ; and Scots pine and larch were planted thickly 

 amongst them. In the course of six or seven years the 

 trees grew to ten feet high and more. A. grandis grew the 

 quickest, being thirty feet high sixteen years after plant- 

 ing. A. Douglasi was the next quickest. 



The transplanting of large rhododendrons, and form- 

 ing them into groups in new places, formed a part 

 of these operations. I transplanted one rhododendron, 

 20 feet in diameter, a distance of a quarter of a mile, and 

 it grew afterwards with fresh vigour. I found in the 

 transplanting of these large rhododendrons that if we dug 

 out a hole, however large, for each shrub, and planted in 

 that hole, the plants did not grow nearly so well as 

 when a large bed of rhododendrons was made. In 

 making the latter we marked off the size of the clump, 

 threw out the whole earth inside the mark to the depth 

 of two and a half feet, brought our plants, put them in 

 position in this pit, then threw the soil back again into the 



