114 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



PREPARATION OF THE LAND FOR 

 PLANTING 



Cleaning. Draining. Fencing. Roads. 



SECTION I. CLEANING. 



ELABORATE instructions have from time to time been given 

 on this head, but it cannot be too clearly realised that the 

 financial returns from timber crops in this country are never 

 likely to permit any great initial outlay in the shape of sub- 

 soiling, trenching, or ploughing, etc. Nor, except draining, 

 is it often needful to disturb the natural soil. In many cases 

 even draining is not needed. Indeed it would be a difficult 

 matter on private estates in this country to find plantations 

 where any expensive preparation of the ground had been 

 attempted, and the condition of plantations generally show 

 that no such preparations are as a rule needed. Trees root 

 too deeply to be permanently affected by any preparation of 

 the surface soil that is practicable, at least in poor waste lands 

 where the soil is thin. Rough surface vegetation may have 

 to be cleared away by burning or cutting previous to planting, 

 and kept down afterwards till the young trees meet and 

 smother under-growth, but it is seldom necessary to do more. 

 Hitherto British woodlands have generally been planted on 

 the natural surface, and the same remark applies to Continental 

 forests. In some few instances proprietors have, on the 

 advice of their foresters, gone to the expense of deep steam- 

 ploughing previous to planting, but it is held by many 

 experienced planters that little or no equivalent advantage is 

 gained thereby ; that in a pulverised soil the roots sooner 

 reach the inferior sub-soil ; and that on bare fallow young 



