I1RITISH FOREST TREES 137 



point of view, the adoption of the method of planting in 

 groups will usually be found a speedier and preferable 

 way of attaining the object desired. 



Planting of silver fir can take place with satisfactory 

 results in the open, though when it is available some protec- 

 tion from light standards, or from side-shade, is at any rate 

 desirable ; but in localities subject to late and early frosts 

 it becomes essential, and if not available, necessitates the 

 planting of some quick-growing species like birch, pine, 

 larch, willow, or alder, as a nurse. 



The silver fir can be planted out with naked roots up till 

 the sixth year, but after that successful results are only to be 

 expected when the plants are put out with balls of earth 

 attached. Its development at first is so slow, and at the 

 same time its sensitiveness to drought or rank growth of 

 grass so unmistakable, that it is never planted out as a one- 

 year-old seedling, and even as two or three-year-old seedlings 

 only under protective standards in localities tolerably free 

 from a soil-covering of grass or fallen leaves. 



The best material is doubtless four or five-year-old trans- 

 plants that have been pricked out in the nursery as two-year- 

 old seedlings. They develop so much more equally and 

 quickly than unschooled plants, that the results are well 

 worth the slight difference in the cost of the plants over 

 those obtainable from patches of self-sown growth. 



The methods of planting are essentially the same as with 

 the spruce, but when naked seedlings are used, particular care 

 must be taken to maintain the rootlets moist by dipping them 

 from time to time in mud or loam ; each planter should be 

 supplied with a pot or basket, in which it is easier to keep 

 the plants moist. Where the soil is not tenacious, notching 

 is practicable, but better results will in general be achieved 

 at very slightly greater costs by the use of Heycr's small 

 cylindrical spade for preparing the holes on the area to 



