136 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



canopy above to give the necessary amount of protection to 

 the seedlings after germination, and the rapidity with which 

 the removal of the protective standards is advisable depends 

 on considerations affecting both the mature crop and the 

 soil. With any species like spruce, danger from wind would 

 point towards speedy clearance (total clearance of the 

 spruce, and planting up at once would, however, be the 

 usual method adopted), but under pine the soil would prob- 

 ably be drier and likewise demand the rapid removal of 

 the standards. 



Where the protective standards consist of conifers, seed- 

 beds are prepared as for natural reproduction in strips or 

 patches, upon which the seed is sown as soon as possible 

 after the ripe cones are obtainable, since, owing probably to 

 loss of the essential oil contained in it, the seed rapidly 

 loses in germinative power ; a sufficient covering is given if 

 the strips or patches are gone over lightly with an iron rake. 

 Under standards of deciduous species, where the seedlings 

 are apt to be choked by the dead foliage, narrow bands of 

 about one and a half feet broad are prepared with the hoe, 

 the earth being heaped up in the middle so as, when pressed 

 down, to form a ridge about four inches in height along 

 which the seed is sown in a rill and then covered by gentle 

 raking. The distance between these bands depends on the 

 proportion in which the silver fir is intended to form part of 

 the future crop ; if it be intended to form the ruling species, 

 the recurrence of these strips should take place six feet apart, 

 which comes somewhat expensive, but if only -]- to of the 

 crop is to consist of silver fir, they need only occur every 

 1 8 to 24 feet apart. When sowings of silver fir have been 

 made in places where the young plants are apt to get covered 

 with dead foliage, they must be freed from this during the 

 second and third years before they send out their young 

 shoots ; but from the economical as well as the sylvicultural 



