CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



the climate of the part of the country to which the 

 plants are transported. Young plants grown in a 

 nursery near the level of the sea will have a poor 

 chance of thriving when transferred to a moun- 

 tainous high-lying district. Suitable plants being 

 procured, it is absolutely necessary that they be 

 planted thickly, or near each other, so as to have 

 mutual shelter. A prodigious error is often com- 

 mitted in planting so thinly that the infant trees 

 perish, or at all events grow slowly and very unsat- 

 isfactorily. In short, they are killed, or languish 

 for want of mutual protection from cold winds. 

 Stick in the plants almost touching each other. 

 That is a primary principle in planting. As the 

 plants grow in height and breadth, thin them out. 

 Before they are six or eight feet high they may 

 have had to be thinned out two or three times. 

 This looks like a waste of plants, but no other 

 method of treatment will give satisfaction. The 

 plants removed in thinning are susceptible of 

 being transplanted. Still, if transplanted young, 

 it should be in sheltered situations. (For Pruning 

 and Thinning, see further on.) 



The different methods pursued in establishing 

 or laying down woodland depend in some measure 

 upon the number of acres and the nature of the 

 ground. Nevertheless, there are certain points 

 which in every case are worthy of the planter's 

 attention ; such as the best form for any given 

 extent, the style of boundary, and the mode of 

 inclosure. On these heads we transcribe the 

 advice of a practical forester of long experi- 

 ence : ' As the future welfare of a plantation is 

 considerably affected by the manner in which it is 

 laid out, no man ought to attempt the laying out 

 of ground who is not naturally possessed of good 

 taste for that sort of landscape scenery. It is 

 also necessary that the person who would lay out 

 ground for a new plantation should be possessed 

 of a knowledge of the nature of the growth of each 

 sort of tree when planted upon any given soil or 

 situation. 



' The larger that any piece of plantation is, the 

 sooner will the trees come to useful size, and 

 answer the desired end ; the smaller it is, the 

 more likely are the hopes of the planter to be 

 disappointed. And the reason of this is obvious : 

 for the young trees growing in an extensive 

 plantation, as soon as they rise a little above the 

 surface of the grass or heath, begin to shelter one 

 another; whereas, if the plantation be narrow, 

 the young trees can hardly be said ever to come 

 the length of sheltering one another for every 

 breeze of wind blowing through the whole breadth 

 acts upon every single tree almost as powerfully as 

 if each tree stood singly and alone. No young plan- 

 tation, upon an exposed situation, should be less 

 than one hundred yards broad at any given point. 



* The method of laying out plantations in the 

 form of strips, so often to be met with in Scotland, 

 gives a poor and mean appearance to a gentle- 

 man's estate, particularly when found about the 

 home grounds. The form in which they have 

 generally been made is in straight lines, from 

 twenty to thirty yards broad. But few such 

 strips are now planted : gentlemen are begin- 

 ning to see the impropriety of such a method 

 of raising plantations ; and now, in almost all 

 cases of good management, we observe the old- 

 fashioned narrow strip giving place to the well- 

 defined, extensive plantation, which is, indeed, 



602 



the only profitable way of rearing trees for any 

 economical purpose. 



' It is absolutely necessary that every piece of 

 ground laid out for a plantation should be fenced 

 in one way or other, previous to its being planted. 

 A fence not only prevents the inroads of sheep 

 and cattle, but it at the same time tends very 

 much to shelter the young trees, and to bring 

 them on rapidly. It is, indeed, surprising to- 

 observe the difference that a very low fence makes 

 upon the growth of young trees, as compared with. 

 those which are not protected by one. Any pro- 

 prietor or forester, upon looking through his 

 several plantations, will observe that, in all young 

 plantations, the most rapid-growing, and at the 

 same time the most healthy trees in it, are to be 

 found immediately behind the outer fence ; and r 

 upon the other hand, in all older plantations, the 

 best grown, and at the same time the most healthy 

 trees, are to be found in the centre of the same,, 

 or at least a considerable distance back from the 

 fence. The reason is that, during the first eight or 

 ten years of the age of any young plantation, the 

 boundary-fence is the only shelter that the young 

 trees have ; and it is evident that those trees which 

 grow immediately behind the fence will receive 

 most of the benefit of its shelter ; consequently, 

 from the circumstance of their receiving more 

 shelter than their neighbours further off, they grow 

 more rapidly, until such time as their tops begin- 

 to rise above the level of the fence, when they are 

 considerably checked by the cold winds. At this 

 stage they begin to grow thick and bushy, rather 

 than advance in height ; and immediately upon 

 their becoming so, they begin to shelter all their 

 neighbours inside, which, again, begin to have 

 double the advantage of their neighbours outside ; 

 for the trees upon the outside had shelter only so- 

 long as they were below the level of the top of the 

 fence, whereas those inside have now a shelter 

 which every year increases upon them for their 

 advantage, in height as well as in thickness. I 

 always calculate that a plantation with a good 

 fence is ten years in advance of one without such 

 protection.' Brown's Forester. 



We must now notice the more approved practice 

 applicable to the better kind of soils. In one of 

 the prize-essays published in the Transactions of 

 the Scottish Arboricultural Society (vol. i. p. 77), 

 Mr Thomson, of H.M. Chopwell Woods, offers the 

 following valuable observations on this head : 

 ' Planting is a work of the greatest importance, and 

 cannot be satisfactorily executed unless there is 

 due preparation made for it. We often see large 

 tracts of land surcharged with water, and growing 

 only the veriest rubbish, having a few forest-trees 

 studded at irregular intervals over the extent ; but 

 such is not planting in the true sense of the word. 

 We apprehend the first thing necessary to attend 

 to in this respect is, to have the grounds carefully 

 laid out into the required form, which, as a matter 

 of course, will have to be regulated by the natural 

 undulations and general outline of the grounds 

 upon which the plantation is to be formed, and 

 the position and aspect which it is desired it should 

 assume. It will, however, be found advisable, in 

 all cases where practicable, to have one side made 

 as much as possible in a convex (or cuneate) form, 

 with the tip of the cone pointing in the direction 

 whence the prevailing winds of the district blow ; 

 this is in order that the force of severe gales may 



