INTERPLANTING. 131 
to forest, from acre to acre, from group to group. Let us take 100 
standards to be planted now as a convenient figure for calculation. 
The prime cost of young trees grown on a large scale may be taken 
at little over half a farthing per tree: see the schedule of rates published 
by Mr. R. G, Robinson in ‘* Forest-tree Growing,’ p. 30. His exact figure 
ig O'174 of a penny—say, one-sixth of a penny. A curious confirmation 
of the figure half a farthing per tree comes from New South Wales. (Vide 
Forest Report for 1917-18.) In his evidence to the Forest Commission 
(p. 21) he quoted the equivalent of one farthing each as the cost of his 
trees by the time that they are in the ground. This is for good close 
planting spaced 4 ft. by 4 ft. apart, 
In Ireland, with labour half the cost of New Zealand, the all-round 
cost of planting per established tree works out to $d. (Forbes, at Avon- 
dale). 
The cost of interplanting (young tree + insertion + after-care) may 
be averaged at Id, per tree planted, or 8s. 4d. per 100 trees per acre. This 
is a Cape rate discussed in my brochure “‘ Tree-planting for Farmers,”’ 
the round figures taken there being 4d. nursery-cost of tree, 4d. planting, 
4d. atter-care; total established tree, 1d. One penny per planted tree 
is about the rate of the cheapest of the Australian sparse planting— 
Victoria, at French Island; though at the Conservators’ Conference, 
Sydney, the Conservator of South Australia, an authority on forest 
plantations, gave as a figure of average cost $d, per planted tree. For 
Kauri, on account of the trouble in getting the seed, Mr. Goudie estimates 
2d. per tree as a rough general average. Amongst good native timber- 
trees, White-pine and Totara are the two abundant seeders for easy 
interplanting. 
As mentioned, these planted trees would grow as ‘‘ standards’’ in 
(and afterwards over) the native ‘‘bush.’’ That is why they could be 
planted only a few to the acre and yet give well-shaped clean timber, 
where a full plantation on bare ground would require from 1,210 
(spacing 6 ft. by 6 ft.) to 5,000 trees per acre. Trees planted as standards 
in the native forest might or might not want one lhght cleaning. 
It is certain, though, that to keep them from being smothered by 
the ground herbage they would often require to be heavily mulched. It 
takes a foot or more of good dense mulch to keep down fern. 
“Cut and mulch’’ (‘‘ Australian Forestry,’’ p. 131) is the sine qua 
non for this kind of planting. It is the want of ‘‘cut and 
mulch ’’ that has spoilt some attempts already made to plant in the 
bush in New Zealand. Then again, some years of neffoiements would 
be necessary, as in the case of self-sown seedlings (p. 117). This mulching 
and nettorvement, with replacing failures, might run up the cost to £2 
per acre, or perhaps £3 as a maximum for Kauri. This is about the 
cost of destroying the forest and grassing at the present time. 
Interplanting costs less than Grassing.—Grassing costs rarely less 
than £3 an acre at present prices, and, unlike the forest planting, it 
has to be done everywhere; so whether the land be grassed or the natural 
regeneration completed by planting, the cost may be set down as on the 
whole less for interplanting than for grassing. This does not take 
account of the case of interplanting in a forest of dense undergrowth 
and where there was no timber-working to open up the forest. That 
might be more costly than grassing. 
5* 
