n8 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



a notch or hole with a sharp-pointed tool, and dibbling the 

 plants in. It is best adapted for very rough stony ground, 

 where the ordinary spade cannot be used, but is not such a 

 good system as slit-planting under ordinary conditions. 



Furrow-planting consists in taking out a deep furrow 

 with the ordinary or a specially strong plough, and placing 

 the plants in the furrow. It is merely a modification of 

 pit-planting, in which the hole is taken out with a plough 

 instead of the spade, and is only adapted to fairly level and 

 deep ground, such as old arable or broken-up pasture. The 

 cost of this method varies between pit-planting and slit- 

 planting, or from 2 to 3 per acre, according to the size 

 of the plants and the power required in ploughing. 



The great point about all planting operations is the 

 exercise of care in the removal of the trees. Every 

 precaution should be taken to prevent the roots being dried 

 or exposed to sun and wind, from the time they are lifted 

 in the nursery until placed in their new position. Three 

 parts of the failures which occur in ordinary planting 

 operations arise from the neglect of this precaution, and a 

 word of caution may also be said against the practice of 

 leaving the plants tied up in bundles and laid in by the 

 heels for several weeks at a stretch. 



Another aid to successful planting is the employment of 

 stout well-rooted plants with thoroughly ripened wood. In 

 the process of transplanting, the plants have to rely upon the 

 reserve material stored up in their tissues for the formation 

 of new roots. Ordinary transplanting invariably destroys all 

 those fibres or root hairs which are the active portions of the 

 root system, and no growth can take place until these have 

 been renewed. Another advantage of well-ripened wood lies 

 in its power of resisting exposure with a greater impunity, and 

 on sites at all exposed to strong winds this is an important 

 point. 



NATURAL EEGENERATION. 



The process of natural regeneration of forest trees is 

 one which goes on in all parts of the world, and England is 

 no exception to the rule. Left entirely to themselves, all 



