174 Studies in Forestry [CHAP. vin. 



coming the disadvantages with which they have to struggle 

 during the first two or three years of their existence. 



Where sowing can take place under the shelter of standards, 

 or in the lee of crops nearly mature, it is much more likely 

 to be satisfactory than in the open. But, under nearly all 

 circumstances, there is usually a good deal of work and outlay 

 required for the filling up of blanks ; hence the final cost 

 of the formation of such young crops is not always less than 

 if planting had been carried out over the whole area at the 

 very outset. 



Until nursery seedlings or transplants have established 

 themselves in their new abode, there is always a disturbance 

 and a diminution of the activity of the root-system ; and this 

 is accentuated by the trimming often requisite even in young 

 plants, and always necessary in older transplants. In this 

 respect sowing certainly has the indisputable advantage over 

 planting of permitting a more natural and uninterrupted 

 development of the root-system, and of effecting a better 

 accommodation of the latter to the nutrient characteristics 

 of the soil. The disturbances occasioned in transplants vary- 

 according to the species of tree, the method of planting, and 

 the nature of the soil. Shallow-rooting species with good 

 reproductive capacity establish themselves much more rapidly 

 than deep-rooting species; while, on fertile soils, the efforts 

 made towards accommodating themselves to the new con- 

 ditions are more quickly responded to than on soils of merely 

 average or indifferent quality. 



By the use of transplants, too, many of the dangers from 

 insect enemies during the first years of growth are avoided, 

 although experience in many different localities has shown 

 that sowings suffer on the whole less from Curculionidae than 

 where plantations are formed with small seedlings. 



Comparisons between crops formed by sowing and by 

 planting during the last half-century have shown 1 that in 

 1 Gayer's Waldbau, 3rd edit. 1889, pp. 383, 384. 



