THE NEW FORESTRY. 135 



two-year transplants, the pits, we are advised, must be larger 

 still. The pits having been dug out, the top sod is chopped 

 up and put in the bottom of the pit and the remainder left to 

 cover the roots. This spread-root method of pitting is based 

 upon the erroneous assumption that the roots of the tree, 

 instead of going down, will spread out laterally and take 

 possession of the soil in the hole first and then spread from 

 there into the adjacent soil. But the roots do not behave 

 like this at all, and the forester who plants in this way 

 defeats his purpose and causes his employer needless expense. 

 Every gardener of experience knows full well that in the 

 case of young trees the roots, in a soft open soil, strike 

 down, and the practice of lifting, root-pruning, and concreting, 

 etc., is based upon this well-known fact ; these operations 

 being intended to prevent the roots going down and make 

 them spread out near the surface. Forest trees behave in 

 exactly the same way, particularly when young and newly 

 planted, and the wonder is that foresters have so long followed 

 the useless practice of wide pitting without discovering the 

 fact No matter how good the soil in the large hole may be, 

 the roots of the tree strike down to the bottom, and more 

 readily in soft than in hard soil. These facts may be 

 verified in any plantation. The young tree root behaves 

 like the seedling, as shown in Figure I. In fact, the tree wants 

 but little from the soil, and nothing is better known to planters 

 than the fact that, in young plantations, on good land 

 even, of moderate depth, the roots make straight for the 

 subsoil beneath, and after a few years are chiefly found 

 there, permeating the poor, rocky strata in all directions. 

 What led us first to test the wisdom of wide pitting, was 

 the expense. According to Brown and Grigor, digging the 

 pits alone, by contract, costs from fifteen shillings to twenty 

 shillings or thereabout per thousand where wages are low ; 

 and we know estates in England where thirty shillings was 

 the price paid. These figures may have to be nearly doubled 

 before the trees are planted and the holes filled in again, .thus 

 adding enormously to the cost per acre. By the system of 

 narrow pitting and planting at the same time, we have had 

 the work completed for less than half the above price, viz., for 

 twenty-two shillings and sixpence per thousand, and this sum 

 included the lifting and sorting of the plants in the home 

 nursery. In the two cases the conditions were all equal. 

 Grigor was a great raiser of forest trees, and no one should 

 have known better that, apart from the objections to wide 



