140 PLANTING OF WASTE LAND. 



of by his eye, and as it is extremely difficult 

 to see the plants after they are put in, especial- 

 ly if the heath is pretty long, he sets up poles in 

 the first line, to enable him to keep the second a 

 due distance from it ; and, in planting the last men- 

 tioned, he removes these poles into it, as he comes 

 opposite to them, which then serve as his guide in 

 planting the third ; and thus he proceeds till he 

 cover the whole of the ground. Instead of poles, 

 the simpler expedient is sometimes adopted, of cut- 

 ting up small sods here and there with the planting- 

 iron, and laying them on the tops of the heath, and 

 they answer the same purpose, though in a less per- 

 fect manner. The lines thus formed are necessarily 

 so zig-zag, that, when the trees grow up, they do 

 not seem to have been planted in rows of any 

 kind. 



In this way, an expert workman will plant be- 

 tween three and four thousand young plants a day, 

 and do it so perfectly, that the fault will not be his 

 if a single individual of the whole number fail to 

 grow. This method, therefore, is, at least, six or 

 seven times cheaper than the original form in which 

 the notching system was introduced, and, in fact, 

 renders planting as economical a process as it seems 

 possible to make it. When a person sees it pr^c- 



