30 TBEE CULTURE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 



hole is filled in and the soil feels hea-s^y upon the roots. After the soil 

 is filled in to the top, it should then be firmly pressed down with the 

 feet, and the indentation thus made afterwards filled up with loose soil, 

 and left without further tramping down. 



Never press down the soil upon, the roots of the plants imtil the hole 

 is full, as the looser and freer it is about the tender fibres, the sooner 

 will they strike into it in their new position, and become established 

 once more. 



As a rule, transplanted trees should stand a little deeper in the soil 

 (say from ^ to 1 inch according to size of plant) in the plantation than 

 they stood in the nursery Hues. 



Be careful to see that the best soil is always put roimd the roots of 

 the trees. This will ensure a much better result than if the soil is put 

 in the hole indiscriminately without reference to its quality or fineness. 



When the insertion is completed, the plant should stand as re- 

 presented in Fig, 4 : that is, with all the roots well below the sur- 

 face of the ground and the ground slightly sloping from the outside 

 to the stem of the tree. I cannot condemn in too severe terms a 

 system of planting trees which I often see carried out in the colony : 

 that is, of planting the tree on a raised mound. This does not give 

 them a chance to live throughout the summer, and I am convinced that 

 considerable losses have been sustained from the system hitherto. 



The plants grown in bamboo tubes are more easily and much more 

 cheaply planted than those grown in axiy other way. Two smart men will 

 put in about 600 plants by this system in a day. As elsewhere 

 explained, however, it can only, so far as I have yet seen, be used 

 in the rearing of the Eucalypti ; hence its application to general forestry 

 is somewhat limited. 



The tubes should be conveyed from the nursery to the plantation in 

 boxes about 18in. square on top, and 9in. deep, with handles of wire as 

 shewn in Fig. 72. Boxes this size will hold over 200 tubes, or about as 

 many as will last a couple of planters one-half of a day. Fig. 77 represents 

 a box full of plants, and ready for the planter to begin work with. A box 

 should be provided for each set of two men planting in one row, and 

 there should be two full sets of boxes, so that, while the men are planting 

 with the one set in the forenoon, a man may be filling the other with the 

 tubes in the nxirsery, and have these brought out to the plantation by 

 noon, and thus the emptying and filling wiU go on regularly without 

 loss of time. 



Two men are necessary to each row, one with a spade, and the other 

 with the box of plants. It is, of course, presumed that the ground has 

 been previously thoroughly ploughed and subsoiled. On such lands, the 

 plants in bamboos can be planted very easily. The man -vvith the spade 

 digs up and moulders down the soil for a space of about 12in. all round, 

 and as deep as the spade will go, on the spot where the tree is to be 

 inserted. This done, he will then sink his spade into this prepared spot, 

 in a perpendicular manner, and cut out a space for the tube. The man 

 with the box of plants, wUl now take a plant in one hand and a trowel 

 (Fig. 73) in the other, and placing the tube against the cut edge of the 



