REPORT BY THE LATE MR. JOHN GRIGOR. 5 



Many extensive tracts of land adjoining the sea, 

 where the influence of the sea-spray used to prevent 

 the profitable growth of plants, causing a great space 

 of land to be utterly barren and unprofitable, have, by 

 skilful treatment been rendered remunerative, by the 

 growth of forest trees ; plantations having been formed 

 both in England and Scotland, in soil apparently of the 

 poorest description, which, until lately, was accounted 

 entirely unfit for vegetation ; and are not only now of 

 intrinsic value in themselves, but are furnishing a 

 shelter, and consequently bestowing fertility upon 

 adjoining lands. In a report on these plantations, 

 by the late Mr. John Grigor, of the Norwich and 

 Forres Nurseries, their success is chiefly attributed 

 in the first place to careful preparation of the 

 ground, which was trenched eighteen inches in 

 depth ; second, to the erection of fences com- 

 posed of furze and brushwood, as screens, six: feet 

 in height ; third, to the plants being of the best 

 description, two or three years of age, transplanted 

 into nursery lines the year before they were placed in 

 the plantation, which consequently endowed them 

 with bushy fibrous roots, and closely planted two and a 

 half to three feet apart ; fourth, to cleaning, by hoeing 

 the land, for the first two years after planting, during 

 which period root crops were produced among the 

 young plants. The plantations embrace an area of 

 114 acres. The trenching cost six pounds per acre, 

 and the fencing, plants, and planting, upwards of four 

 pounds ; making the net cost upwards of ten pounds 

 per acre, exclusive of the hoeing, which amounted to 

 less than a fourth part of the value of the crops. 



" These plantations," says Mr. Grigor, to whom the 



