48 PLANTING. 



pitted ones were healthy and vigorous, made good 

 progress, and stood quite uninjured. 



" In spring 1844 the whole of this plantation was 

 planted by pitting with Scots fir. The pits were 

 opened by contract, 4 feet apart, being 3422 pits to 

 the Scots acre, at the rate of 30 s. 10 d. per acre. The 

 plants were planted into the pits by men on day's 

 wages, which cost 15 s. per acre, making a total of 

 45 s. lOd. expense per acre for planting. The pits 

 were in size 15 inches in diameter and 10 inches 

 deep. The surface was carefully broken and mixed 

 with the best of the soil into the bottom of the pits, 

 and the clay taken from the bottom was filled in last. 

 The clay on the surface remains a long time clean, 

 and free from any foulness growing into it. The pits 

 were well trodden down and beat with the back of 

 the spade, in order to smooth the surface and prevent 

 the beetle harbouring in them, which it would do 

 were the surface rough. Five acres of this plantation 

 were at the same time planted by slitting, to see how 

 they would succeed. At the end of the season they 

 proved a total failure, having been wholly destroyed 

 by the beetle during the summer. The pitted ones, 

 on the contrary, remained uninjured, and appeared 

 quite healthy and strong. During winter, however, 

 they suffered much ; having been planted in a tract of 

 moorish land with very retentive subsoil, about 30,000 

 of the pitted plants were thrown out by the frosts 

 of winter. The following spring their places were 

 supplied by fresh plants, and all have done well 

 since. 



"In spring 1846 an old Scots fir plantation of 

 twenty acres, upon the estate of Innernytie, was 

 cleared out for planting. Being a flat piece of poor 



