PLOTS, PITS AKD HOLLOWS. 269 



roots or where the soil varies very appreciably from point to point, 

 also in repairing small areas of previously unsuccessful regenera- 

 tion. It is, however, totally unsuited for wet or swampy localities, 

 since each patch would there become a collecting centre for the 

 superfluous moisture. Moreover, it is not effective enough iu. the 

 midst of a very strong growth of weeds and undershrubs. 



ARTICLE 10. 

 PLOT SOWING. 



Plots are simply patches of an exaggerated size, which renders 

 their employment practicable and advantageous under standing 

 forest where the growth of weeds and brushwood is very heavy, as 

 in evergreen forests and in the Himalayas. The size of the plots 

 (from 6 to 10 feet side"> permits of their being made at much 

 wider intervals apart than patches, from about 100 to only 

 40 plots per acre, and then they practically constitute numerous 

 small temporary nurseries from which the intermediate ground can 

 be planted up. For this reason they are extremely useful on hill- 

 sides containing several distinct zones of vegetation or in forests 

 where the soil and locality, and consequently also the composition 

 of the stock, vary from point to point, and especially to increase 

 the proportion of some valuable species that cannot reproduce it- 

 self naturally with the same ease and abundance as companion 

 species of mueh less value. 



It is hardly necessary to Bdd that the soil in the plots must be 

 completely freed from roots and rhizomes capable of throwing up 

 shoots and thus enabling undesirable species to again take pos- 

 session of the ground. Moreover the cultivation should be deep 

 and thorough in order to give the sowings the best chance of 

 establishing themselves. If the soil is poor or otherwise of bad 

 quality, it should be well manured. The proportion actually cul- 

 tivated of the total area will be so small (never more than 2 per 

 cent.), that the extra cost of high tilth will be trifling, especially 

 when compared with the results. The sowing should be thick 

 enough to enable the seedlings to close over the ground within each 

 plot in from 4 to 6 years. 



ARTICLE 11. 



PlT OR HOLLOW SOWING. 



The pit and holloio are to the patch what the trench and fur- 

 row are to the strip, and a pit differs from a hollow in the same 

 sense as a trench differs from a furrow, that is to say, a pit has a 



