PLANTING. 39 



stratum, and render free the circulation of water and air, otherwise the 

 attempt to establish trees will be vain. When the land is clean, friable, mo- 

 derately deep, free from, and not retentive of stagnant moisture, the mode of 

 planting by holing may be adopted with propriety. Lands of a tenacious, 

 clayey nature, and also those of the best quality, employed for forest 

 planting, ought to be trenched, as being the most economical ultimately, 

 and the most effectual, for these kinds of soil. The preparation of tenacious 

 clayey soils by paring, and burning, and trenching, has already been stated. 

 Since the above was prepared for the press, we have perused the able 

 tracts * on planting by W. Withers, Esq., of Holt, in Norfolk. This gen- 

 tleman, besides shewing, by facts not to be doubted, the superior advantages 

 of trenching, compared to that of holing or slit planting, in the more 

 speedy returns of profits from thinnings, and extra annual increase of 

 timber in the trees left for that purpose, has likewise proved the value of 

 manure to poor soils in conjunction with this mode of preparation. That 

 such a mode of preparation with the application of manure should be 

 highly advantageous for the growth of the more valuable timber trees on 

 soils of the nature now alluded to, will be instantly seen by every one who 

 has examined carefully the natural habits of these trees by the principles of 

 vegetable physiology already discussed ; and such as may feel reluctant, 

 or have not leisure, to employ this mode of arriving at a perfect convic- 

 tion, may be amply convinced by comparing that soil on which the oak, 

 for instance, or any other of the more valuable timber trees, invariably 

 attains the highest perfection, with that on which it or they are always 

 inferior. Compare the constitution of the soil No. 2, at page 7, with that 

 of the soil No. 5, and the almost total absence of clay, chalk, and vegetable 

 matter, will be evident in the former. Now, on this soil the oak, according 

 to our experience and observation, is never found in a natural state, and, 

 when planted in it, never attains to any value as a timber tree even with 

 the aid, as nurses, of the pine, birch, and sycamore, which here succeed. 

 On the soil No. 5, where the constituents of the soil are different from 

 those of No. 2, the oak attains to the highest perfection. To supply 

 manure, therefore, composed of clay (burnt or recent), chalk, and vegetable 

 matter, or rotten dung, in the requisite proportions, and by deep trenching 

 (remedying, in some measure, the defects of the subsoil), and by combining 

 and comminuting the whole as intimately as possible, the soil No. 2 would 

 approximate to that of No. 5, and the oak might then be planted with a 

 certainty of its successful produce of timber. Any smaller application 

 than the requisite quantities of these ingredients will, of course, give a 

 diminished result as to the crop of timber, but still it will give an increase 

 in proportion to the quantity applied. 



The principle on which manure is objected to for the rearing of forest- 

 trees, is, that it will force the growth of the tree beyond its natural state, 

 and render the deposit of vegetable fibre soft, and of diminished strength 

 and durability. This, however, is carrying the point to an extreme to 

 which it is never likely to be in the power of any planter to arrive, were 

 he even willing to attempt it. To manure a poor soil, for it should be 

 here kept in view that this and not a rich, or even moderately rich soil, is 

 intended, can have but one effect, and that is to improve the growth of 

 the trees. But the great, immediate, and important object of manure here, 

 is to furnish a liberal supply of food while the plant is in its first stages of 

 growth, thereby giving it the means to form a strong constitution, enlarg- 



* ' A Memoir on the Rearing, &c., of Forest-trees.' ' A Letter to Sir Walter Scott, 

 Bart., & c .' ' A Letter to Sir H. Steuart, Bart., &c.' By W. Withers, of Holt, Norfolk. 



