176 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



wide areas, and cheap and efficient as this method may 

 be under favourable conditions, it is not, and never can 

 be suitable for planting on more than a limited pro- 

 portion of the soils of the British Isles, unless some 

 previous preparation of the surface, other than that 

 mentioned above, has been carried out. The essential 

 features of slit-planting implies the existence of a skin of 

 turf, peat, or some other covering of vegetable origin 

 which binds the surface soil together. Without this 

 skin, slitting in the ordinary way is scarcely practicable, 

 and pitting, notching, or dibbling are the only methods of 

 getting trees into the ground. The success of slit-plant- 

 ing depends very largely upon the depth of the turf and 

 the condition of the soil below. Where the peat, roots 

 of grass, rushes, bracken, or other growth is more than 

 an inch or two in depth, and forms a thick blanket on 

 the surface of the soil more or less impervious to showers 

 and the free circulation of air into the soil, it is impossible 

 for the roots of small trees to be brought into contact 

 with finely pulverised soil, and so given such conditions 

 as enable them to make a fair recovery from the injuries 

 to their root systems, and the interruptions of normal 

 functions which accompany transplanting. To the 

 absence of such conditions must be attributed a very 

 large proportion of the deaths which follow slitting in 

 dry or unfavourable seasons. 



Hard subsoils, such as gravels, sands, etc., cemented 

 into a concrete-like substance, must be broken up if slit- 

 planting is to be successfully carried on, especially if 

 iron pan exists in any form. The condition of the soil 

 below the peat or turf, again, determines the resvilt of 

 slitting almost as much as the surface. Hard or plastic 

 clays, and soils so stony or compacted that a spade 

 cannot easily be got into them, are unsuitable subjects 

 for slitting. In the former, the roots are alternately 



