THE NEW FORESTRY. 105 



CHAPTER VIII. 



PREPARATION OF THE LAND FOR 



PLANTING. 



Cleaning.- — Draining. — Fencing. — Roads. 



SECTION I. — CLEANING. 



ELABORATE instructions have from time to time been given 

 on this head, but it cannot be too clearly realised that the finan- 

 cial returns from timber crops in this country are never likely 

 to permit any great initial outlay in the shape . of sub-soiling, 

 trenching, or ploughing, etc. Nor, except draining, is it often 

 needful to disturb the natural soil. In many cases even 

 draining is not needed. Inded it would be a difficult 

 matter on private estates in this country to find planta- 

 tions where any expensive preparation of the ground 

 had been attempted, and the condition of plantations 

 generally show that no such preparations are as a rule needed. 

 Trees root too deeply to be permanently affected by any 

 preparation of the surface soil that is practicable, at least in 

 poor waste lands where the soil is thin. Rough surface vege- 

 tation may have to be cleared away by burning or cutting 

 previous to planting, and kept down afterwards till the young 

 trees meet and smother under-growth, but it is seldom 

 necessary to do more. Hitherto British woodlands have 

 generally been planted on the natural surface, and the same 

 remark applies to Continental forests. In some few instances 

 proprietors have, on the advice of their foresters, gone to the 

 expense of deep steam-ploughing previous to planting, but it 

 is held by many experienced planters that little or no equiva- 

 lent advantage is gained thereby ; that in a pulverised soil the 

 roots sooner reach the inferior subsoil ; and that on bare fallow 

 young forest trees make less progress during the first year or 

 two than they do when planted on the natural grassy surface. 

 It is certainly a fact, that" bare ground, once it hardens on the 

 surface, suffers much more from drought in summer and cold 

 m winter than grass land does. So marked was this, in a case 



