PLANTATION. 



PLANTATION. 



same chemical examination of its composition 

 well illustrates the advantage derived by the 

 plant from merely previously stirring the soil, 

 since it is evident that when the constituents 

 of the young trees are contained in it in only 

 very limited proportions, in such case the more 

 easily their roots are enabled to penetrate in 

 search of that necessary nourishment, the more 

 rapid will be their growth. Previous trenching 

 of the soil also conduces to the healthy growth 

 of trees in more ways than one. It renders 

 them less subject to injury from want of moist- 

 ure in the heats of summer; the atmosphere 

 more freely finds ac4^s to their roots, and not 

 only yields its watery vapour in the warmest 

 weather for their service, but its gases, so 

 essential to their very existence, are also in a 

 similar manner more readily absorbed. 



I have had many occasions to notice the ad- 

 vantages of deeply stirring the land for timber 

 trees. In my early plantings, my larch and 

 other timber trees made but little progress, for 

 I merely placed them in holes dug in the soil; 

 I neither manured, nor in any way prepared 

 the soil. An experiment, however, which I 

 made some years since in which, by merely 

 trenching the soil with the fork in a clump of 

 larch, Scotch firs, and birch, to the depth of 

 about 20 inches, the growth of the trees, which 

 had for several years been extremely slow, was 

 in the succeeding years exceedingly vigorous 

 convinced me of the truth of the observations 

 made by Sir Henry Steuart, Mr. Withers, and 

 others, of the great advantages of trenching the 

 soil, either by the spade or by the common or 

 the subsoil plough. 



The opinions and explanations given by the 

 labouring woodmen of the cause of the occa- 

 sional very luxuriant patches in extensive 

 young plantations accord with these conclu- 

 sions. They tell you that those favoured trees 

 are on a dtcp, tender piece of land. 



The last branch of the investigation that 

 of the best mode of planting and of expense 

 is now to be considered. Too little attention 

 is usually paid by planters in the choice of their 

 plants, the manner in which they have been 

 real el, and in the care of their removal : in- 

 stead of attending to the acquired habits of the 

 tree, it is a very common practice for the plants 

 to be bought of some nurseryman, who has 

 reared them in a warm, rich bottom, and then, 

 as a natural consequence, when the trees are 

 transplanted to a cold, poor, hungry, exposed 

 soil, a large portion of them are sure to perish, 

 or, if they live, many become stunted or stag- 

 headed. That all these evils may be avoided 

 with only ordinary care, is proved by the ex- 

 perience of the best planters, who are careful 

 to procure their seedlings from land at least 

 not better than that on which they are intended 

 to be placed ; and is further evidenced by the 

 fact that, when the soil is prepared by either 

 deep digging or manuring, or both, then the 

 mortality amongst the plants is very small in- 

 deed, they need no further attention, they! 

 equally set at defiance the extremes of heat I 

 and cold, are very rarely diseased, and shoot 

 with uncommon vigour. This attention to the 

 early acquired habits of the plant is not entirely 

 a modern observation the early Italian plant- i 



ers were, careful in replacing the tree in the 

 same position as regards the cardinal points 

 that it occupied in its early growth. (I'irgil, 

 Geo. ii. 269.) 



There are othervery common errors, of which 

 I have long noticed the ill effects; for instance, 

 the want of care with which the roots of the 

 young trees are deposited in the earth, and the 

 unnecessary length of time which is suffered 

 to elapse between the period when the plant is 

 taken from the nursery and replanted. I have 

 always found the after good effect of causing 

 the roots of the young plant to be carefully 

 arranged, and spread out before the earth is 

 thrown in upon it; the usually heedless way 

 in which the roots are thrust into the hole, and 

 perhaps broken or materially bruised in the 

 act of treading in the earth upon them, is of 

 necessity very prejudicial to the young plant ; 

 and then, again, a still more negligent practice, 

 that of ploughing in the young trees, is too often 

 adopted on a large scale, by which the plants 

 are still more hastily deposited in the soil, and 

 are neither fixed with sufficient firmness in the 

 ground, nor even placed in an upright position. 

 From these causes I have witnessed some very 

 decided failures; and there is certainly no eco- 

 nomy in this hasty mode of planting; the trees 

 perish in great numbers ; they linger for years 

 without vigour; have to be replaced at a con- 

 siderable expense ; and in the mean time the 

 owners lose all the advantages which might 

 have been insured from a more skilfully ob- 

 taine^ rapidity of growth. 



The grouping or mixture of trees is a ques- 

 tion which rarely engages the attention of the 

 planter, although it is certain that, like the 

 commonly cultivated crops of the farmer, some 

 trees grow better when mixed with other kinds 

 than when vegetating in plantations of the same 

 species; that they have certain secretions, and 

 excrete matters, both by their roots and leaves, 

 which are noxious to other trees, is certain. 

 Thus the ash, and more particularly the locust, 

 are very obnoxious to most trees. Then, again, 

 the grouping together of certain trees is parti- 

 cularly grateful to them all. Thus, the larch 

 is a very good neighbour; the Scotch fir, the 

 birch, and the Spanish chestnut grow very 

 luxuriantly with it; the oak, the elm, the hazel, 

 and the hornbeam are evidently good neigh- 

 bours. The Roman planters had remarked this 

 habit of trees. Thus, they believed that the 

 elm was particularly grateful to the vine ; and 

 they were so convinced of the existence of what 

 they called the sympathy between them, that 

 they called the elm the husband of the vine. 

 It was invariably their custom to plant them 

 near each other; and as we are indebted to them 

 for the introduction of the vine into England, 

 so hence, in all probability, came with them 

 our first elm trees. 



The expense of these different modes of 

 planting is next to be ascertained ; it is an in- 

 quiry which will well repay the planter. The 

 favourite mode, that of digging a small hole 

 and inserting the tree, is, apparently, attended 

 with the least outlay of money; in some in- 

 stances it has been done for 4/. or 51. per acre, 

 or even less ; but such plantations are very 

 rarely profitable, the plants die, or barely 



895 



