464? Notes on planting Timber Trees in Scotland. 



and the reason you always get for its not being done is, " Oh 

 the trees are of no use as wood, and they make excellent shelter." 

 Now, in the first place, what is the use of planting thick? It may 

 be said the trees shelter one another; this is a mistake as 

 regards young trees, for by the time a tree is big enough to 

 afford shelter, his neighbour is as large, and can give as much 

 shelter as he can : then the expense of thinning, when the trees 

 are worthless, is considerable, and it requires a bold hand to 

 cut down a fine thriving tree. I would say therefore, if you 

 have not courage to thin (though I am rather an advocate for 

 thick planting), plant sparingly. In belts it is peculiarly ne- 

 cessary to thin. A belt is planted for shelter ; and for twenty 

 years perhaps, though that is the utmost limit, a belt, planted 

 as thickly as it is generally planted, will form a good shelter, but 

 after that period the shelter becomes less and less. The trees 

 come to be without a single branch on the stem for ten feet 

 upwards at least ; they are unhealthy, their roots being choked ; 

 the wind makes fearful havoc among them ; and, at the end of 

 the second twenty years, there will be but a few stragglers left to 

 tell the melancholy fate of their departed brethren : and, observe, 

 these stragglers are on the outside of the belt, and possibly on 

 the most exposed side ; but where they have had a little more 

 justice in point of room, and got accustomed to the blast. But, 

 if a belt is thinned so that the lateral branches barely touch one 

 another, the tree becomes feathered nearly to the ground, and a 

 dense mass of foliage or branches remains to arrest the progress 

 of the wind, and the desired shelter is gained. The trees, 

 though not so tall, are healthy and in a more natural state; their 

 roots have room ; and they stand their ground amid the winter 

 storms, which with us are neither few nor far between. 



A great objection to planting being carried on more ex- 

 tensively than it has hitherto been is the great expense of 

 enclosing. In pastoral countries " a dry stane dike" is almost 

 necessary. Your English readers, or some of them, may require 

 to be told that this is a wall built of stones without mortar. It 

 is generally about 4^ or 5 feet high, and costs from 6s. to 135. 

 per rood of 18^ ft. This, as above stated, is* the most expensive 

 part of the plantation, but one of the most important ; if good 

 durable stone is to be had in the immediate neighbourhood, in 

 spite of the heavy outlay, it is the cheapest, the most durable, 

 and satisfactory fence, in the long run. But a great many plant- 

 ations have been made with no other fence than a ditch and turf 

 wall, or as we call them " feal dikes," with a single railing of 

 paling along the top. This is a cheap fence and is put up, 

 paling included, for about Is. 6d. per rood. The cost will 

 scarcely be a year's interest of the outlay on a stone dike; but 

 it requires constant attention, as cattle are apt to rub it down. 



