OF OAK PLANTATIONS. 167 



of making them, well cleaned from all root-weeds, 

 so as to give them every chance of success ; and the 

 soil being a fine dry sandy loam, I calculated upon 

 success. I soAved the seed in the month of Febru- 

 ary, and, upon looking over the ground in a week 

 or two afterwards, 1 was mortified to find that rab- 

 bits had visited the fresh earth of the pits before me, 

 and had fully one-half of them burrowed through ; 

 upon looking for the acorns, I found the shells 

 indeed, but the mice had eaten the kernels ; and 

 upon examining the state of the pits generally, 

 in which the acorns had been sown, I found that 

 very few of them had escaped the ravages of ver- 

 min of some sort or other — I even caught pheasants 

 in the very act of scraping up and helping them- 

 selves to an acorn. Upon seeing all this, I was 

 indeed thankful to my old friend, the forester, for 

 his cautious advice, and was also happy that I did 

 not sow extensively upon ground which was so much 

 overrun with game and other vermin. As I had 

 sown only about an acre of ground in the manner 

 above stated, I could indeed easily have prevented 

 the ravages of the larger animals, but against 

 those of the mice there was no possible resource. 

 Therefore, this being only a trial upon a small 

 scale, I determined to give nature her own way in 

 the whole business, and consequently did not go 

 back to inspect the state of the pits in which the 

 acorns were sown till about the middle of May, 



