300 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 10. 
Syringing .—This will he generally advisable, when, 
after some dull days, we have a sunny one—very likely 
the forerunner of a frosty night. If plants are as dry 
as safety will permit, they will stand an amount of 
cold they could not do when wet. In dull, foggy wea¬ 
ther, the whole perspiring and elaborating processes of 
this plant are reduced to a minimum. A bright sun 
comes upon such plants, and finds them unprepared to 
meet him, and before their dormant energies are aroused, 
he makes them hang their heads like bulrushes. Now, 
ten to one, the plants do not require moisture at the 
roots, and a drenching there, with a frosty night suc¬ 
ceeding, might require as many more coals from you as 
would keep a parlour lire for several days, if your house 
was large. A slight dusting over the foliage, in such 
circumstances, just as the sun begins to shine forcibly— 
nay, repeating the operation at mid-day, if necessary— 
would supply moisture for him to evaporate, without 
extorting it from the debilitated stems and foliage of 
the plant. Upon the same principle, after dull weather, 
we are often forced to shade tender plants from a 
bright sunshine, not because sunlight is not good 
for them, but because they are not prepared for its free 
action. Extremes must be avoided. 
Air-giving .—This is another puzzler. I have men¬ 
tioned, when in cold pits they may be shut up, and 
when air must be given. As a general rule, with an 
outside temperature of 36° to 40° in the shade, air may 
be given freely; but so as to keep out wet. With that 
temperature, and foggy, give none if you can keep the 
fog out; give a little if that is beyond your power. In 
cool greenhouses act on the same principle. Where 
plants are in bloom, or plants are forced, air must be 
given with more caution. Give little, or none, in very 
frosty weather; prefer letting your fires low during the 
day ; and, if practicable, cover up at night. If several 
days of raw, cold, damp fog come, keep it out if you can. 
If it gets into the house, light fires to change the fog 
into invisible vapour, and give a little air at the top, 
just to let the moisture-laden air escape. This will 
prevent the evil of a stagnant atmosphere. With an 
outside temperature of 40°, and above, give air freely. 
When much below that, a free admission of air, except 
for an hour or two, would, in the case of greenhouse 
plants in general, be attended with a free use of the fuel 
heap. R. Fish. 
THE WOODS AND FORESTS. 
EEEPAKING THE GEOUND FOE A NEW PLANTATION. 
( Continued, from page 281.) 
Supposing the proprietor of some extensive moor, or 
mountain land, has determined, or been influenced, by 
some means or other, no matter what, to plant a large 
piece of those barren and bare portions of his estate, the 
first thing to do is to prepare the ground for the re¬ 
ception of the young trees. Draining is the first step 
towards that preparation. Without this important 
measure being well carried out vain will be the labour 
and expence of planting. I have, some three or four 
weeks ago, given an instance of the ill-effects of planting 
undrained land, and the beneficial effects it had on 
them when performed. 
If the ground, then, is wet and springy, or any part 
of it, let that part be well and thoroughly drained. It 
will pay the expence in a very few years by the rapid 
and free growth of the trees. The next operation will 
be digging or trenching the ground. This is a heavy 
and somewhat costly operation, requiring a large amount 
of labour, and a no less large share of patience and 
perseverance ; but wherever the spade and pickaxe can 
be used, the land intended to be quickly covered with 
timber must be digged, or even trenched. Far better 
is it to only undertake to plant five acres at once, and 
do it well, than to plant fifty carelessly prepared. The 
practice, when I was a boy, was to let to nurserymen, by 
contract, a certain number of acres to be planted at so 
much an acre ; the nurseryman to find labour and trees, 
and to fill up all vacancies that might occur through r 
deaths for three years. This seemed a very excellent ! 
plan; and where the land was tolerably good, in some [ 
ten or fifteen years a fair sprinkling of trees did make i 
some growth. 
I was then in a celebrated nursery in the north, and 
often had to attend upon the men and carry plants for 
them. Previous to planting, a kind of pioneers were 
sent to what they called prepare the ground by holing 
it. This work was commonly done about August and 
September. If the ground would allow it, a turf, about 
a foot square, was cut off the surface, the soil underneath 
thrown out, and then the turf put into the bottom of 
the hole, and the soil upon it; but if the land was 
thin of soil, covered with brushwood, or fern, the 
holing was then done with a kind of mattock, one end 
of which was like a strong, thick hoe, and the other 
sharp and small, like a common pickaxe. With the 
broad end of this certainly powerful tool in the hands of 
a strong, willing man, the turf, or fern, was chopped.off 
in a circle about a foot or fifteen inches diameter. Then 
the soil, or gravel, or marl, or whatever was underneath, 
was loosened with the sharp end of the mattock, and 
the hole was ready, as they said, for the tree. This 
operation was often relet by the nurseryman, and was, 
or was not, properly done, as the case might be. The 
price, if I remember rightly, was miserably low, so that 
too frequently the men only half did the work, in order 
to count a greater number of boles, and thereby earn 
more, or, at least, obtain more of their scanty pittance. 
Then, when autumn arrived, the trees were torn up out 
of the nursery beds, a kind of hodge-podge mixture was 
concocted, and the trees were thrust into these prepared 
holes or liolings. The men should have opened the 
holes deep enough for the roots, then set the tree in the 
centre, and fill in the loosened stuff, whether gravel, 
sand, or soil, or a mixture of all upon and amongst the 
roots; but too frequently, in order to get in a certain 
number before night, the spade was merely thrust in 
about the centre of the loosened soil, worked backwards 
and forwards, till a kind of chasm was formed; then 
the roots were crammed in and the soil closed, and this 
was called preparing and planting a forest. 
In some situations this mattock would be an excellent 
tool, no doubt, for preparing the ground, and the pre¬ 
vious summer a proper season to do the work in. Steep 
hill sides, covered with small stones, with here and there 
patches of gorse heath and rough grass, in such places 
this mattock would be the very best instrument for the 
purpose; but then the whole surface should be mattocked 
over, and all brambles, whin bushes, or heath, stubbed 
up, and either burnt or laid in heaps to rot. With 
this instrument the most barren hill, or mountain, might 
be prepared, so as to receive and grow trees well. 
It is well known to many persons that in Hampshire 
there are large tracts of hilly land on which there is 
the scantiest of all herbage, and scarcely an inch of 
mould. About forty years ago, the late Lord Calthorpe 
came into possession of a large tract of such land in that 
county. He was then a young, enterprising man, full of 
benevolent feelings for the poor on his estate, and there¬ 
fore he immediately set them to work in preparing the 
barren parts of it for the reception of trees. So little 
soil was there that every particle that could be found 
was laid in little heaps, and when the planting was 
commenced not more than a spadeful could be allowed 
to each tree. Yet, so well were they planted and ma¬ 
naged under his own eye, that ten years ago, when I 
sojourned for a short period in the neighbourhood, the 
