66 PLANTING IN EXPOSED SITUATIONS. 



ment, unless the roots can penetrate the soil, which they can more easily 

 do when the soil is thus prepared, their roots sending ont their spou- 

 gioles and securing good growth, which enables them to withstand the 

 storm and make upward growth. 



Butif tbe soil and subsoil are light or sandy, and dry, no preparation 

 of this kind is needed, as there must be firmness enough in the ground 

 to allow the plants to get firmly plauted. A plantation when inclosed 

 and plauted will still require great attention and judicious management 

 until the trees have grown to timber size. If neglected from want of 

 timely trimming, and allowed to run up slender, tlieir chance of success 

 by late trimming will be small indeed, for, having but small roots, they 

 will be less able to withstand a storm. 



In a plantation of about three acres, four miles from the sea and 

 GOO feet above it, the soil being a cold clay loam, was not well adapted 

 to the early growth of young plants. The trees were a mixture of 

 common and Turkey oak, ash, sycamore, beech, elm, and a few birch, 

 with one or two laburnums and service-berry trees along the margin, 

 and about forty-five years old. The subsoil rested upon limestone which 

 had been removed in places 12 to 15 feet in depth. The trees were 

 much larger in these depressions because they were more sheltered, 

 soil was drier, or more mixed with rubbish and small stones, allowing 

 room for the roots, and from not being as crowded as on the level parts. 

 The trees on the level part were very small of their age from exposure, 

 coldness of the soil, and neglect of trimming when young. The beech 

 and sycamore trees had prospered much the most. Along the margin 

 was a row of ash with a few wych elm, and one or two Turkey oak, 

 laburnum, and service-trees, and all very much exposed. The Turkey 

 oak contained much more timber than its neighbors, being larger than 

 the ash or elm trees, but the branches and young shoots of the elm had 

 fared best. The ash trees were badly injured, their branches growing 

 on the sheltered side chiefly. The laburnum and service trees had stood 

 the exposure well. One or two larch trees had been nearly ruined. 



Around this small plantation another had been planted ten years 

 before, and inclosed, the exposed side having an upright paling-fence 4^ 

 feet high, the openings being 1^ inches apart, which did good service 

 while it remained ; hut upon removing the fence it was soon found that 

 the trees had been too kindly nursed by the shelter to withstand the 

 severity of the exposure, many Scotch firs being blown down, and others 

 half over, with their roots partly out of the soil. The birch trees fared 

 no better, and many appeared as if they had been pulled over. 



This shows the need of bringing up young trees in bleak places, as 

 hardy as possible, so that they may take girth, in proportion to their 

 height, and make good root growth so as to hold them firm against 

 severe winds. If a shelter is provided for young trees in such places it 

 should be a good stone wall or dike with a rough and irregularly pro- 

 jecting coping, by which the wind is broken as it rises on the wall, and 

 prevented from striking the trees with great force, or at once, as it 

 might do with a level coping of the width of the wall. Many prefer 

 artificial paling, brush, or stake and rise shelter to stone walls or dikes, 

 which do very well if kept up till the trees can do without them, but 

 they are expensive, and do not furnish a permanent inclosure like a wall 

 or dike. 



In a plantation of about ten acres, set with oak, wych elm, Scotch fir, 

 larch, and spruce, the location was about two miles from the sea, an(l 

 40 feet above its level. The soil was sloping, and of different qualities, 

 some being pure sand, other parts light and thin and i^oor loam, and 



