10 About Trees, Shrubs ami Climbing Plants for S.A, 



if the rook encountei'ed is boulders, or rotten shale, tree planting 

 will be safe. But if solid reck or any impermeable substance 

 such as hard shale is found a foot down, it may be taken as a 

 clear warning away from this area as a Commercial proposition. 

 This does not mean that because your farm is underlaid with 

 shale, or freestone, you cannot grow trees ; but only that you are 

 debarred from growing them on a Commercial scale. There will 

 always be small areas bits of alluvial and hillside pockets 

 where ploiity of timber for home use may be grown. Some trees 

 there are with root systems of great penetrative and disintregat- 

 ing power, such as Callitri*. Pinus pinaster, Eucalyptus sider- 

 oxylon, and even common Wattle; and while these may not be 

 so much at home as to make handsome specimens, they will easily 

 reach utility size, and be well worth planting. 



CHAPTER III. 

 PREPARATION OF LAND. 



THE farmer shotild already know how to prepare land for trees 

 but most farmers don't know. Travelling about the country 

 as we do from time to time, we see much lamentable failure in 

 the trees. Some of this failure is caused by grass fires which 

 have been allowed to burn into the plantations ; some by irregular 

 rnd unequal planting; others by cattle depredation. But most 

 failures were there right from the plan-ting time, and are directly 

 traceable to ignorant or careless preparation of the land. A 

 furious feature is that one often sees this on otherwise very well 

 worked farms. 



A plantation, or a windbreak, or a shrubbery even, is first of 

 all a conception in a man's mind. A part of the conception is 

 that of value. If one is convinced that a well -grown plantation 

 will yield a fortune he is willing from the beginning to put solid 

 work into it. If, on the other hand, he undervalues the planta- 

 tion; if only a bit of firewood is to be the result, the work is 

 done carelessly and the plantation becomes an eyesore to all 

 passers-by. Incidentally, time is wasted. But the farmer -must 

 grasp the truth that trees are just as great a value on his farm 

 as a field of Mealies, and that they are worth spending time and 

 energy over. Once the conception reaches Its true valuation the 

 plantation is an assured success. 



Land intended for trees (even for Wattles) should be ploughed 

 trell to a depth of at leant seven inches. During the first two or 

 three years of their growth all trees are very sensitive to sur- 



