32 SANDALWOOD PLANTATIONS. 



Sites. Sandalwood Plantations. Before forming a plantation, 



it is absolutely necessary to ascertain if Sandalwood grows 

 in the vicinity, if it makes good heartwood, and its general 

 rate of growth. Sandalwood grows at an elevation of two 

 thousand to four thousand feet, three thousand being the 

 mean. Mysore undoubtedly produces the best wood. In 

 selecting a site, the ground should not be too rich, or you 

 may have rapid growth, and but little heartwood as some- 

 times may be seen on the banks of streams where the stem 

 may be a foot iu diameter and yet all "white wood. A fair 

 brown soil is the best for producing good growth, and heart- 

 wood full of oil. If water be obtainable close at hand, so 

 much the better, as a watering the first year, gives the plants 

 a good start, and enables them to stand the hot weather. We 

 will suppose you intend to make a plantation of at least one 

 hundred acres. Small plantations do not pay. You will 



Nurseries. make your nursery beds near water, they should be composed 



of sand and vegetable mould and ashes to keep off ants, 

 &c. The seeds may first be germinated in a heap and 

 then planted in lines, four inches apart, and three inches 



p itg ^ in the lines. The beds may have light pandals of brush- 



wood to break the force of the sun. When the plants are six 

 inches high, they should be lifted, the tap roots cut back to 

 four inches, and then replaced in the beds six inches apart. 

 When nine inches to a foot in height, put them out with a 

 transplanter into eighteen-iuch cube pits, shade and water 



Fences. f r the ^ rs ^ J ear If possible, the plantation should be fenced 



with a ditch, and thorns planted thus, """\/"""" as spotted 

 deer are very destructive to the young plants, so are village 

 goats. As the value of the Sandalwood tree depends upon 

 the number of sound and straight billets you can get out of 

 a tree, you must be very careful to draw your trees up as 



Pruning straight as possible, cutting off all unnecessary side branches, 



when not more than one inch thick close to the stem, if 

 the branches are thicker, they must be shortened to a foot 



