136 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



pitting stated above, frequently transplanted trees from a 

 nursery and of the right age have practically no roots 

 fit to spread. Not long since, on a well-known estate, 

 wide pits were made, where a plantation was to be, 

 the trees having been ordered from a nursery. We saw 

 them being put, in, and to all appearances there was not a 

 tree in all the many thousands delivered, whose roots could 

 not have been got into a pint pot or even a smaller vessel : 

 they were simply lost in the large holes, and the soil, being 

 soft round the necks of the trees, got worked into a puddle 

 by the trees being blown about by wind. We tested this 

 matter severely over the whole of a large plantation. The 

 plants were mostly four-year-olds, some older, raised by 

 ourselves. The soil lent itself to the experiment, being a 

 stiffish loam. Narrow planting spades, a little broader than 

 a good planting trowel, were used ; and the holes were the 

 depth of the spade and just wide enough to get the roots in 

 suspended perpendicularly on one side of the hole. Roots 

 that were more bushy than usual were gathered together and 

 inserted into the hole in a bunch and wedged up like the 

 rest. This plantation is ,one of the few in this country that 

 has been planted and grown on so far, on the dense system 

 of culture. The trees have now reached the stage when the 

 grass and weeds begin to die out and the lower branches to 

 die off, and few more regular or healthier plantations could be 

 found. A large proportion of the trees being Corsican firs, 

 the worst transplanter among the conifera, many who have 

 seen the plantation have expressed surprise at the remarkably 

 small proportion of failures, as indicted by the .plantation 

 generally, and more particularly by certain marked, unbroken 

 rows planted as a test Every tree in the plantation was 

 practically dibbled in, the whole bunch of roots being treated 

 as one tap-root, and being home raised they had bushy 

 straight roots, and could therefore be better dealt with. The 

 cost of labour, in both pitting and planting, was less than the 

 cost of simply digging the holes in another case where big pits 

 were made We have planted still larger tracts with equal 

 success in the same way, on very rocky, poor, hilly ground, 

 where the pits were difficult to make ; but the progress of the 

 trees from the first has compensated for the trouble. Narrow 

 pits, then, we believe to be the best for trees several years 

 old, and the trees should be put into the pits as shown in 

 fig. 4 and made firm from the point of the lowest root to the 

 collar of the plant The pit should really be of the same 

 shape sectionally as Figure 4. 



