ON ROADS IN PLANTATIONS. 45 
to one. Where this fence was formed at a right angle to the 
natural slope of the ground, catch-water drains were formed, 
which furnished additional material for the slope or back of 
the dike, where required: These drains form a safeguard for 
the dike during floods. The cost of this fence, including the 
catch-water drain, amounted to 1s. 2d. per lineal yard; but of 
course the cost of all such fences -depends on the supply of 
materials and of workmen in their vicinity. It sometimes 
happens during winter that dikes of every description become 
drifted with snow, over which sheep find an easy access into 
plantations; for this reason wire fences, as they are less apt 
to accumulate snow, have become common for the protection 
of plantations throughout the Highlands of Scotland. 
Roads in Plantations.—It is usual, before planting land to 
any great extent, to line out the roads which may afterwards 
be required ; this is most easily accomplished while the 
ground is bare, and the inclination of the surface can be 
brought under the eye. It is seldom necessary at this stage 
to do anything further than mark off the roads, remove ob- 
structions, and form side drains, where the soil is wet, to 
admit a carriage drive throughout the ground. These are 
commonly formed from fourteen to eighteen feet wide, and it 
is seldom that the use of such roads justifies any great outlay 
in their formation, until they are required for the removal of 
timber, which seldom occurs, to a great extent, before eighteen 
or twenty years after the formation of the plantation. 
The carriage of timber, on account of its vibrating motion, 
is more severe on roads than that of almost any other com- 
modity ; this accompanied with the circumstance, that roads in 
woods have a tendency, in all sorts of soil, to retain moisture 
from want of air, and from their seldom having been formed 
with any substantial body of materials to support heavy loads, 
accounts for the bad state in which they soon appear after 
having been subjected to any considerable traffic. Few opera- 
tions are attended with greater outlay than the formation of 
good roads, and when such are only occasionally required in 
the removal of timber from the forest, the cost forbids their 
