13 



Replacing Failures. 



Never go on to new ground till the failures and blanks 

 in the old plantations have been filled in. This is simply 

 common sense, but no rule is more often forgotten in the 

 haste to cover new ground and make a show of young 

 trees. 



Weeding. 



Weeds must be kept down at any cost until it is quite 

 clear that the planted trees are dominating and killing the 

 weeds. As far as possible, the plow and scarifier, or horse 

 hoe, should be used for weeding in place of manual labour. 

 Their work will be facilitated by planting slightly out of 

 the square, making the distance between the rows rather 

 wider than the distance, from plant to plant, in the rows. This 

 inequality must not be pushed too far, or the trees will be 

 lob-sided. For instance, instead of planting 4 ft. x 4 ft. 

 square, the planting might be done 5 ft. x 3 ft. But 

 unless the weeding is likely to be very heavy, square 

 planting is the best, or a distance, such as 4 ft. x 3 ft., that 

 is nearly square. 



The disposal of weeds is of some importance. If the 

 scarifier be used, they should be attacked when quite young, 

 ripped up and left to wither in the hot sun. With manual 

 labour they have to be attacked later and less frequently. 

 If unfortunately they are then seeding, and the locality 

 one where weeds are troublesome, the only plan is to burn 

 them and give the trees the ashes. But the better plan is 

 to lay them round the trees so as to act as a mulch and 

 keep down by their shade the growth of fresh weeds. The 

 cost of weeding will vary from 4s. or 5s. per acre for 

 scarifying, to, from 10s. to 40s. per acre for manual labour. 

 Closely planted pines should not want weeding more than 

 once, in sand not at all. Wide planting rapidly runs up 

 a terrible bill for weeding and cleaning. 



Pruning. 



In close plantations pruning should be limited to re- 

 moving one leader from forking trees. It is important 

 that this be done as soon as possible. If it be omitted, the 



