and the Management of Plantations at IVelbeck. 
371 
The lol lowing items form the cost of planting an acre of land 
on the system described : — 
£. s. d. 
Preparing ground for Turnips . . . . 2 10 0 
5 quarters of Bones at Is. 6rf. per quarter . . .476 
rioughing ground over after the Turnips have been 
eaten off 0 8 0 
Throwing the ground into beds . . . .14 6 
1 quarter of Acorns . . . • • .0160 
Sowing the Acorns . . . . . .040 
1000 Larches 10 0 
Poles, digging, and planting . . . . .076 
10 n 6 
It would have been possible to have given the actual returns 
from an acre of plantation at different periods of its growth, and 
an estimate of the value of the growing wood. But plantations 
vary so much in their progress, according to the quality of the 
land on which they are planted, that a single instance, or a few 
individual instances, would have afforded no safe ground for a 
general conclusion. 
The system of planting and thinning pursued at VVelbeck is 
thought to combine a fair return of annual profit with the produc- 
tion of the largest growth of straight and profitable timber that 
can be obtained from a given surface of ground. 
Note. — My first plantations in Birkland were on old sheepfolds, in 1821. 
It is probable the dung pt' the sheep had been scraped up or carried off ; 
for the trees have grown very ill. In 1825, 14 acres near it were fallowed 
by the plough, and sown with acorns. Between a part of this ground and 
the site of the old sheepfold, and close to the latter, there was a small bit 
of ground which could not be worked by the plough. As it was of no use 
there, and very full of twitch, it was digged three spades deep, merely with 
the view of burying the twitch, and planted with oaks. In 1847 I hap- 
pened to see this ground, and 1 found that the oaks had far surpassed those 
planted before them ; and judging that their great superiority arose from 
the quantity of soil, in which their roots were able to work without obstruc- 
tion, 1 have adopted the same principle in all the plantations made in the 
following winter. The beds are made five feet wide. The top-soil is re- 
moved, and the bad soil thrown out. It is replaced not only with the top- 
soil originally thereon, but with an equal quantity taken from the five feet 
on each side of it. The bad soil is then thrown upon the top, and bones 
are sown with the plants planted in the bad soil. They have, therefore, a 
depth of three spadefuls of loose earth to grow in, the best soil being 
below ; and the bad surface manured with bones. This plan has been 
eminently successful. The young plants have flourished amazingly, and 
hardly any have died. This applies equally to oaks and chestnuts. It is 
fair, however, to add, that the season has been more favourable for planting 
than any I ever saw.— Scott Portland. 
