EllRORS IN CULTIVATION OF WOOD. 



27 



most cultivated, and where long experience has 

 taught that the greater part of them ought to re- 

 main at least four or five years in the nursery, it is 

 customary to treat firs in a manner precisely similar, 

 without taking into consideration any of the circum- 

 stances in which these sorts differ from one another. 

 A still more striking example of improper culture 

 exists in the common method of treating the oak, — 

 a method which has made that tree one of the rarest 

 productions of our forests. 



Planting is often carried on in a much more ex- 

 pensive plan than is in any degree necessary. It is 

 frequently executed in England, and even in the 

 south of Scotland, at as high a rate as from six to 

 twelve pounds per acre. This arises partly from 

 expending much useless labour in preparing the 

 ground, partly from making use of plants of too 

 large a size, and partly from the adoption of impro- 

 per methods of putting them into the ground. By 

 following the plan recommended in the succeeding 

 part of this work, firs, and all the tribes that can be 

 removed from the nursery, when they are two years 

 old, may be planted as low as eighteen shillings 

 per acre, or even lower ; while those species that re- 

 quire to be of a greater size and age, before they 

 can be transported to their final destination, may 



