62 FORESTS, WOODS, AND TREES 
Association, in other cases, has taken the pit bank on lease. 
When the spoil banks have been owned by District Councils 
or other Corporations, the Association has supplied the 
trees and given advice; while the labour, which is nearly 
always casual yet satisfactory, has been paid for by the 
public bodies. In one case, the Moorcroft Plantation, the 
Association has been helped by two grants, amounting in 
all to £150, from the Development Commissioners. <A 
most interesting feature has been the starting of plantations 
by about a dozen Board Schools. The Churchyard of West 
Coseley has been planted, at the instance of the Association, 
with 400 trees, which will in time grow into a small wood 
of great value in improving the amenities of the landscape. 
Waste land adjoining the sewage farm at Kidderminster 
and the shale mounds beside the Stanfield Sanatorium have 
been planted by the local authorities on plans suggested by 
the Association. 
The manifold activities of a voluntary association are 
here manifest. Unhampered by red tape, arid with en- 
thusiasm in lieu of pecuniary resources, such an association 
has made valuable experiments of a varied character, based 
on which more extensive work can be carried out in the 
future, either by the local authorities or by the Forestry 
Board, which we hope to see constituted after peace comes. 
Attempts were made at first to establish timber growth 
on the mounds by sowing broadeast the seeds of forest trees 
in situ; but this method proved a failure and was abandoned 
after 1904. The planting of two- or three-year-old seedling 
trees is now invariably the practice; and the only seeds 
now sown are those of shrubs like gorse and broom, which 
are intended to act as temporary screens. Natural seedlings 
of birch may, however, be seen on the big mound at 
Timber Tree Colliery, Cradley Heath, which was planted 
with birch in 1886. These seedlings, Mr. Martineau tells 
me, creep north-east quite steadily, following up the fiery 
part of the mound as the fire retreats. 
The technique of planting has been simple, the main 
difficulty and expense being the proper fencing of the 
