PREPARING GROUND FOR PLANTING. 11 



line of direction, inserting the tool three times in each 

 space where the plant is to stand ; in effect, making 

 a pit for the plant. The operation produces all the 

 benefits arising from pitting, while it avoids the neces- 

 sary attendant evils, and is done at a comparatively 

 nominal expense. 



In planting ordinary moorland, a man, with a boy 

 or woman to handle the plants, puts in from 1000 to 

 1200 per day ; but when the turf is to pare off in 

 addition to planting, he puts in only from 800 to 900 

 plants per day with the same assistance. 



All excessively bare, smooth, bleak surfaces should be 

 rendered rough and broken, as with the plough, spade, 

 or mattock, so that the plants (which are presumed to 

 be small) should have some shelter till fairly rooted. 



Extreme exposures should be planted by using very 

 small, hardy, well-rooted plants, planting them closely 

 together, and thinning early. 



The following interesting statement is made by 

 Joseph Bradley, The Hall, Ebberston, York, in the 

 Highland Society's 'Transactions' for 1872: 



" In the month of March those parts of the ground 

 upon which the heather had attained a considerable 

 growth were burned. Some portions of it, however, 

 having been burned some few years ago, and now 

 covered with plenty of young heather 3 or 4 inches 

 high, were not reburned; and from the healthy and 

 luxuriant condition of the trees, it would seem that it 

 would be the best plan to burn the heather three or 

 four years previous to planting, for the young heather 

 affords great protection to the plants. The land being 

 thus cleared, it was then ploughed. The plough used 

 was one of Messrs Eansom's Y.E.C., made of wrought- 

 iron. It was found, however, that each furrow-slice 



