32 EXPLOITATION OF PLANTS 
deal with bog and sand, by mixing and delving, and 
who first taught Brandenburg what greenness and cow 
pasture was.”"} Full details of the various types of 
reclamation practised by the Dutch are to be found 
in J. W. Robertson-Scott’s War-time and Peace in 
Holland, Heinemann, 1914. 
THe AFFORESTATION OF PIT-HEAPS 
Before passing on to consider the utilisation of other 
types of waste land, reference must be made to a very 
successful scheme for the afforestation of the waste 
heaps of pits in the Midlands. The area exploited is 
the Black Country which coincides with the South 
Staffordshire Coalfield. It has the peculiarity, owing 
to its shallow surface workings, that the pit-heaps are 
widely spread and cover much ground, thus contrasting 
with deep level coalfields where the waste is concen- 
trated in much higher mounds near the shafts by which 
the coal is won. 
The area of these heaps in the Black Country has 
been estimated at 14,000 acres, but it may exceed this 
figure considerably. A beginning was made in 1904, 
when an organisation known as the Midland Re-afforest- 
ing Association, founded for the purpose, began planting 
experimental and demonstration areas. In some cases 
the planting was done for private owners, in others 
on ground leased by the Association. The work has 
gone steadily forward, thirty-five experimental areas 
have been established, together with one large one of 
thirty to forty acres at Bilston. 
1 Carlyle’s Frederick the Great, 1st edition, vol. i. p. 94. 
