ii8 Mountain and hill and down planting 



one a rise in the price of timber, and the other some 

 measure of assistance from the State, certainly in the 

 way of instruction and experiment, and possibly also in 

 the way of loans. He says : 



* My experiments in this line have been carried on since 

 1892 on moorlands in the upper basin of the river Spean, 

 varying in altitude from 1,250 to 1,500 feet. The tract of 

 which they form part is used as a deer forest, being fit for 

 nothing else. Between 500 and 600 acres have been enclosed 

 for planting without in any way diminishing the value of the 

 deer forest, as none of the good grazing ground has been 

 included. 



' The results of draining and planting in the ordinary Scotch 

 fashion have been disappointing. The heavy rainfall and the 

 retentive character of the peat render draining useless unless 

 the drains are very close together. The matted texture of 

 living peat, which the roots of young plants are very slow to 

 pierce, seems also to exaggerate the inherent evils of notching. 

 The roots tend to develop in the plane on the notch, and if 

 they have been twisted in planting, the root-system has no 

 chance of righting itself, and becomes hopelessly deformed. 



'A trial is now being made of the system recently perfected 

 in Belgium to meet the same difficulties. The moors on the 

 frontiers of Belgium and Germany very closely resemble 

 ours in soil and climate, and in the plants which cover them. 

 The Belgian Government is now planting so much of these 

 moors as is public property up to a level of about 2,000 feet, 

 and private owners are following its example. It was found 

 that plants notched into peat at this altitude made no progress 

 at all for five or six years. That delay is now avoided by 

 setting every plant in the centre of a large turf turned upside 

 down. The ground has to be drained in any case, and 

 numerous shallow drains are found to succeed best. These 

 are carefully calculated to supply the number of turfs required. 

 The Belgian Government plants very wide, usually at 6 feet 

 both ways, — its object being to convert a vast extent of moor- 



