AFFORESTATION OF PIT MOUNDS 67 



of pit mounds by private owners. The Scremerston Old 

 Colliery Mound was successfully planted in 1887, at the 

 instance of Mr. John Davidson, agent of the Greenwich 

 Hospital estate in Northumberland. This mound, which 

 had long been a high and bare unsightly heap on the side of 

 the Old North Eoad about three miles south of Berwick, is 

 now a pleasing tree-clad hill. Mr. D. Smith, the forester 

 who actually carried out the planting, tells me that three 

 species were tried — larch, Scots pine, and birch. The birch 

 trees did not thrive, and were early removed as thinnings. 

 The Scots pine proved most successful, and are now fine 

 trees, 30 to 40 feet in height. The growth has been best 

 on the part of the mound which had been on fire. The 

 success of this plantation, which is fully exposed to the west 

 wind, is remarkable. The difficulty of establishing trees in 

 the loose shingly refuse of this high and exposed mound was 

 overcome by planting first a few rows of trees around the 

 base of the mound, and in the shelter thus obtained, con- 

 tinuing with a few more rows, and thus by successive 

 bands in five or six years the whole mound was planted to 

 the summit, which is nearly 100 feet high, without a single 

 tree being blown out by the wind. 



Mr. George Bolam, who has written an article (4) on 

 the planting of pit mounds in Northumberland, mentions 

 that in later years, and closely adjoining Scremerston, Lady 

 Frances Osborne has successfully clothed with young trees 

 some bare pit heaps that had for more than a generation 

 disfigured her property at Ord and Murton. 



The Charley pit bank near Mealsgate, Cumberland, about 

 four acres in extent, has been successfully covered with 

 trees. The colliery was abandoned in 1897, and the first 

 step taken was the sowing of rape and grass seed on the 

 mound. The roots of the herbage thus obtained have helped 

 in the disintegration of the surface. Planting was begun in 

 1898, the trees being planted in holes, in each of which 

 one or two buckets of good soil had been put. Numerous 

 species were tried, of which larch, Scots pine, and birch 

 have shown the most vigorous growth, the earliest planted 



