210 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



expensive, especially on hilly or stony soil, where the 

 pricking out of the seedlings with iron pegs or notching 

 tools is not as feasible as on deep low-lying soils. 



One and two-year-old seedlings from self-sown woods or 

 seed-beds are usually notched in thickly on the lighter 

 varieties of soil, no shortening of the tap-root being then 

 necessary ; but for all seedlings and transplants beyond that 

 age, some trimming of both the ascending and the 

 descending axes is necessary. Very good results can 

 frequently be obtained by the use of two to three-year-old 

 transplants in rows of 4 to 5 feet x 3 feet. When older 

 transplants are desirable the distances at which they are 

 put out vary from about 4 feet x 4 feet to 10 feet x 10 

 feet, or the equivalent growing-spaces if in rows, as the 

 initial costs rapidly increase with the size of the transplants. 

 It is in fact this question of cost that at times determines in 

 favour of sowing, for quicker, and on the whole more 

 reliable, results are undoubtedly attained by planting than 

 by sowing. 



Planting is usually carried out in spring, but somewhat 

 later than in the case of the beech, as the oak is about a 

 fortnight later in breaking into leaf. As, owing to the tap- 

 root, transplants are seldom put out with balls of earth 

 attached, care must be taken to preserve the rootlets from 

 becoming dried up. The transplants are put somewhat 

 deeper in the soil than they have stood in the nursery, 

 especially in loose porous soils, as experience has shown 

 that the soil has generally a tendency to sink in setting. 

 Where pits are prepared for single plants, or patches are 

 trenched for groups or knots, the earth-work should be 

 carried out in autumn, so as to give it full opportunity of 

 setting on the surface before the transplants are put out in 

 the following spring. The use of older transplants of four 

 to six or eight feet in height is generally now confined to 



