WOODS AND PLANTATIONS. 347 



and plantations do not pay. If a well-qualified person were employed 

 to attend to the plantations, who knew how, when, and where to conduct 

 the several operations of forestry, the plantations would soon be found 

 to produce a fair proportion of the annual income of the estate. 



Forestry is a department of landed estate management which requires 

 as much forethought, study, and ability in its management as any other 

 branch. A farm-bailiff is not usually engaged unless he has been trained 

 iu the cultivation of land, and in the rearing and disposing of stock, 

 and is otherwise qualified for the place ; neither is the management of 

 the garden usually intrusted to any but men properly trained in their 

 profession. 



But how often do we find the woods placed in the hands of men who 

 never have been trained to the work ! men who can perhaps cut a tree 

 down when required, and can probably find out its contents in feet, and 

 can insert a plant in the soil, but who know nothing of the true and 

 proper system of planting, thinning, and draining operations connected 

 therewith. Would it be likely that a farm would pay if put under 

 the control of a mechanic ? or would a garden thrive and remain an 

 object of beauty if placed under the same management ? How can it 

 then be expected that woods and plantations can pay where there is not 

 the right man in the right place? The very thinning of woods and 

 plantations is an intricate and responsible operation by itself, and should 

 never be intrusted to any but men who have had experience in the 

 work. The thinning of plantations, judiciously carried out, results in the 

 welfare of the remaining crop ; but when this operation is carried out by 

 men who go to work at random, and who know not whether trees are 

 healthy or unhealthy, or what trees will grow to most profit in the soil, 

 the result will be the certain ruin of the plantation. 



The blunders and mismanagement of a farm-bailiff or gardener can be 

 renovated in one or two years' time at most, but the blunders committed 

 in the management of plantations cannot be remedied for a number of 

 years, and probably not in a lifetime. 



Another point of very great importance to the advancement of arbori- 

 culture is the planting of trees in soils suitable to their growth. We 

 often find young plantations which are not making much progress, the 

 trees in a short time becoming diseased and stunted in their growth, 

 arising either from the soil not being in a suitable state for the recep- 

 tion of the plants, or from the trees not being suited to the kind of 

 soil. Some kinds of trees will of course grow better on certain soils 

 than others, and consequently this must be taken into consideration 

 before the formation of the plantation, if success is desired. Wheat 

 prefers one soil, barley another; and farrners generally keep this in 



