98 FOEESTS, WOODS, AND TKEES 



being on the intake on the lower slopes between the valley 

 and the fell, and in some places ascend up to 1500 feet 

 elevation. The reclamation of the moorland to pasture 

 would set free a larger area of intake for tree-planting. 

 Both Prof. Fisher's report, published in Manchester in 

 1908, and an article by A. P. Grenfell in the Quarterly 

 Journal of Forestry, iii. 21 (1909), may be consulted on 

 this interesting and successful attempt at afforestation of a 

 mountain watershed. 



The forester, Mr. A. W. B. Edwards, who wrote an 

 article in Trans. Roy. Scot. Arbor. Soc. xxvi. 37-45 (1912), 

 on the methods of planting adopted at high elevations on 

 the Thirlmere area, recommends autumn planting as a rule, 

 except for wet ground or peat, which should be planted in 

 spring. He strongly advocates the use of small plants, 

 preferably 2 -year seedlings. In planting steep hillsides 

 he uses the mattock (Fig. 15), commencing at the top of 

 the intended plantation and working to the bottom (16). 

 He uses larch mixed with beech as the main crop except in 

 exposed sites ; and plants a belt of pines, generally a mixture 

 of Scots, Corsican, and Austrian pines, six or eight rows 

 wide, all round the plantation, and also on any outstanding 

 ridges and crags ; and at the higher levels mixes the larch 

 alternately with pines, passing gradually into pure larch as 

 he descends to the 1000 feet contour. Though strongly in 

 favour of Sitka spruce for high and exposed altitudes, he 

 writes on 15 th December 1918 that this species has only 

 been used till now for filling vacancies. It has done well, 

 some trees being about 15 feet high. Douglas fir, planted 

 in the spring of 1908, now averages 30 feet in height, while 

 Corsican pine, planted alongside at the same time, is about 

 1 feet high. Abies grandis, recommended by Prof Fisher, 

 was not tried, as plants of it were too dear. 



Longdendale Valley, the catchment area of the river 

 Etherow and its tributaries in Cheshire and Derbyshire, is 

 19,300 acres in extent, of which about one-third or 6400 

 acres are owned by the Manchester Corporation. The area 

 is situated in an elevated part of the Pennine range, and 



