TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 495 



the stuff has its price and is all being removed by degrees for railway ballast. 

 The third kind generally takes fire and the fii-es may burn for twenty years. 

 When burnt out the resulting soil is a red and friable ash. 



The general result of the Associa,tion's experiments is that the black alder 

 will grow anywhere, on stiff clunch or on loose ash ; the white alder, so 

 euccessful on dry mounds in France and Belgium, has not done quite as well 

 as the black, but is making good fertilising nodules and will ultimately do 

 well. On the loose ash, birch does very well, except where fumes are unusually 

 dense. Where a richer growth of grass indicates a better soil, ash and sycamore 

 have been planted, and are now beginning to do well. Wych-elm, the commonest 

 tree of the district, is also doing very well. 



The plantations formed in 1905 to 1908 are now from 18 to 24 feet in height. 

 Black poplars, which surround some of the plantations, have reached a height 

 of nearly 30 feet. 



There are fourteen thousand acres (estimated) of pit-bank in the Black 

 Country, and the other coal-fields of Britain present many times that area. 

 The As.<!Ociation has only a few acres successfully planted, but sufficient to show 

 that, with proper precautions, the whole of this waste area could be utilised 

 for tlie growing of timber. In some districts larch, Scots pine or spruce might 

 be grown, and the Association has begun to experiment with Sitka spruce, 

 but the Black Country atonosphere is not suitable for conifers, and some other 

 district would make more useful experunents. 



The cultivation is of the simplest. Pits have been made a spade deep, and 

 the rough turf or weeds put in the bottom of them. The labour has been 

 entirely of the casual type, and has proved quite satisfactory, as was indicated 

 by the Association's evidence before the Royal Commission on Coast Erosion. 

 The cost of planting must vary with local conditions, but may be generally 

 stated at about 6/. iper acre, with a charge of about Is. per linear yard for the 

 necessary fencing (1,742 trees per acre, i.e., five feet apart). 



The commercial side of the experiment has not yet matured, but birch and 

 alder are both marketable in Birmingham and the Black Country at a good 

 price, being much in demand for handles of small tools, of electric switches, 

 and of numerous utensils. It is reckoned that in. five or six years the Associa- 

 tion will be able to put on the market some tons of timber at a price much 

 higher than that which growers of coniferous wood expect after forty years 

 of waiting. 



A medal was awarded at the Royal Agricultural Show, Shrewsbury, 1914, 

 to the Association for an exhibit showing the uses to which small alder and 

 birch timber are put, and the progress made in furnishing a new source of 

 supply. 



Closer planting would be a great improvement ; the best distance has proved 

 to be four feet apart, or 2,722 trees per acre at a proportionately, higher cost. 



II. Maritime Waste Lands. By Professor F. W. Oliver. 



These include, in particular, sand-dunes, shingle-beaches, and salt-marshes. 

 It is proposed to draw attention here to certain ways in which the first and 

 last named are capable of exploitation. The suggestions made are not intended 

 to be exhaustive, but merely as illustrations that have come under the notice 

 of the writer of what may be done. 



Sand-dunes. — These have a primary significance in coastal defence, and the 

 utilisation of dunes should be subject to that condition. 



Dunes are commonly fixed by marram-grass {P,?nmma arcnaria), and for the 

 fixing to be efficient the marram should be planted. 



In this country no very urgent necessity has ever been felt to treat sand- 

 dunes seriously because they are relatively small and their wandering has not 

 raised acute problems as in Gascony and on the Baltic. In the Netherlands, 

 of course, tlie existence of the country largely depends on the proper upkeep 

 of tlie dune barrier. It would be easy to show the folly of our slovenly neglect 

 and carelessness were not the space available needed "for the consideration of 

 other aspects. 



Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa have found it necessary to put 



