148 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



foot high, as they get blown over by every gale and are difficult 

 to set up again after they get loose at the neck. Thick plant- 

 ing is one of the surest preventives, especially in the case of 

 top-heavy firs, which are prone to fall over any time before 

 the rows meet ; after that they are pretty safe from danger. 



SECTION XVI. COST OF PLANTING. 



It is next to impossible here to estimate the cost per acre 

 of forest tree planting, so much depends on the price of labour, 

 the size and price of trees, the number to the acre, the species 

 used, and whether bought or raised in the home nursery. But 

 no forester need be in any difficulty on this head. All he has 

 to do is to decide what the species are to be planted, to 

 ascertain their size and value per thousand from a price list, 

 find his own rates for labour and preparation, and the total 

 will give him the nearly exact figure. 



SECTION XVII. UNDER-PLANTING : UNEVEN AGED 



WOODS. 



This is a method of planting with which British foresters 

 are not familiar, as practised on the Continent, and we cannot 

 say that it is a plan adapted to British woods on private 

 estates, because of the danger of the work being suspended 

 from any cause during the long interval of regeneration or 

 planting required. The uneven aged system has been adopted 

 in Germany, as yet on a limited scale, with the object of 

 reducing the labour of tending mixed woods of species varying 

 greatly in rate of growth, and in which the strong species 

 may crush out the weaker. The method consists, practically, 

 in planting the weaker species only at the beginning and 

 following with the stronger species later, at intervals of 

 years if necessary, so as to handicap the latter, to use a well- 

 known phrase. In the chapters on mixed and pure forests, 

 we have suggested a method of dispensing with the uneven 

 aged system by selecting the species carefully, with an eye to 

 similarity of habit, for mixed woods, and the reader is referred 

 to that chapter. The most noteworthy example we have 

 seen of an uneven aged forest was in the Hartz Mountains, 

 near Lauterberg, where spruce was planted ten years after the 

 beech, and had overtopped the latter by twenty feet, the trees 



