DIRECT SOWING AND PLANTING COMPARED. 323 



generally be found preferable to plant. 



LARGE CLEARINGS. Such areas may be quite recent clearings, 

 or fields just given up, or long-abandoned cultivation sites. If they 

 are the first then the choice between sowing and planting will 

 depend on the number and vigour of the stools capable of producing 

 shoots, the abundance and size of the advance growth, if there be 

 any, and the nature of the soil, locality and species ; and it will be 

 found that the instances in which direct sowing is to be recom- 

 mended will be almost as numerous as those in which there is 

 no alternative but to plant. If the area has just been thrown out 

 of cultivation, then the soil will be in a high condition of tilth, and, 

 in the absence of climatic extremes, sowing may succeed quite 

 well enough with a hardy quick-growing species. If the areas 

 belong to the third and last category, it will be found that under 

 the constant unimpeded action of hot and cold winds, frost and 

 insolation, the soil has become hard and impoverished, and grasses 

 and other weeds, both herbaceous and woody, have taken posses- 

 sion of it ; so that the introduction of a forest crop is possible only 

 on the condition that the soil is thoroughly worked up and 

 cleaned, or that strong plants, able to cope with and master the 

 weeds, are brought in. Hence in such places planting will be the 

 rule, direct sowing being adopted only in the case of species posses- 

 sing exceptional vitality and tenacity and able to grow up rapidly. 



3. Land sheltered by trees. 



The effectiveness of the shelter will depend upon the number 

 and size of the trees affording it, the depth and closeness of their 

 crowns, the species to which they belong, and the number of tiers 

 of growth composing the leaf-canopy. The effect of such shelter 

 is to maintain the soil loose, rich and moist, to keep down weeds, and 

 to mitigate frost and other injurious weather influences, if not to 

 render every condition favourable for germination and the prosper- 

 ous vegetation of young seedlings. Hence where sufficient shelter 

 exists, sowing may be just as successful as planting, and being 

 less costly, would in that case be preferable. The slow progress of 

 sowings can be no bar to their adoption, since they can be under- 

 taken as many years as we like before the sheltering crop is removed. 

 IV. Nature of the species used. 



In deciding between direct sowing and planting we have first of 

 all to consider whether the future crop is to be pure or mixed. 



1. When a pure crop is to be raised. 

 Assuming that the single species to be propagated has been pro- 



