74 SYLVICULTURE. 



number per acre, the local climate, and the ability and training 

 of the local labour supply. But the Report of the Royal Com- 

 mission on Afforestation (1909) estimated the total cost of 

 planting at about <6 an acre on the average. 



Sea -Coast Planting invariably needs shelter -belts, as the 

 wind and the spray damage badly the windward side of planta- 

 tions. Beech, Sycamore, Elm, Ash, White Willow, Alder, and 

 shrubs like Elder and Sea-buckthorn, stand sea-breezes well 

 where the soil is loamy ; but on sandy soil, Corsican, Austrian, 

 Scots, Maritime, and Banks' Pines, and White Spruce, arc 

 among the best kinds for giving shelter. To be effective, shelter- 

 belts must be at least 20 to 30 yards broad ; and triangular 

 planting is better than planting in squares. On the Holkham 

 Hills, in "Norfolk, an old rabbit warren on the sea-coast, the 

 sand, after being fixed with bentfe and sand-grasses (Arundo, 

 Elymus, Garex\ was enclosed and planted with J Corsican 

 Pine, \ Austrian Pine, \ Scots Pme> and ^V Maritime Pine; 

 and' these plantations have succeeded well. On the Continent 

 large plantations on sand-dunes have, been made, 'after fixing the 

 outer sand by means of hurdles, by planting or sowing Banks' 

 and Scots Pines. The success of the plantations is greatly 

 assisted by sowing perennial lupin (Lupinus polypliijlluz) or 

 Everlasting Pea (Latliyrus.sylvestris), owing to their nitrogen- 

 fixing root-nodules and the good humus they yield. 



The Tending of Woodlands consists in (1) the weeding of 

 young plantations, and of thickets naturally regenerated, in 

 order to enable them to establish themselves in the form 

 desired ; (2) the thinning of pole- woods and middle- aged 

 crops ; and (3) the' partial deafance of maturinfj woods, in 

 order to stimulate increment on the stems. 



Plantations seldom succeed in establishing themselves without 

 needing a certain amount of beating up to fill blanks caused by 

 late frosts, &c. ; and when old rough pasture land on hillsides 

 has been enclosed and planted after the sheep are taken off, 



