484 TREE PLANTING IN ROUGH NURSERIES. 
TREE PLANTING IN ROUGH NURSERIES. 
The Report of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests 
for 1899-1900 contains an account of the operations which 
have been successfully adopted by the Deputy Surveyor of 
the Forest of Dean in the replanting of the New Beechen- 
hurst and Serridge enclosures. In the vacant spaces which 
were to be planted, rows were dug one spit wide and about 
four feet apart, and in these rows the two-year-old larch or 
seedling oaks were planted about one foot apart. he rows. 
were left untouched for two years, with the exception of 
having the fern and grass cut from between them in the 
summer. At the end oftwo years the rows were gone through 
and about four out of every five of the trees were taken up 
and planted in pits in other vacant spaces, thus leaving a full 
stock for crop in the rows. 
The advantages of this system are stated to be that the 
permanent crop is on the ground earlier than it would other- 
wise be; the check in lifting trees from one part of an 
enclosure and immediately planting them again (generally 
the same day) in another part isvery slight. Thetrees thrive 
much better than if they had at that size to be conveyed by 
rail or carted long distances, which necessitates, on the ground 
of expense, their being removed in large quantities and so 
having to remain several days “‘heeled in” before they are 
planted in their final places. The expense of clearing the 
grass and fern in the rough nurseries is no greater than the 
expense of clearing a smaller number of trees on the same 
area. The whole of the planting of the Serridge enclosure 
(133 acres) was done with trees from these rough nurseries at 
New Beechenhurst, and no loss has occurred up to the 
present. 
As a further development of the rough nursery system, 
acorns and sweet chestnuts have been sown in rows, which 
can be thinned out and the superfluous trees utilised else~ 
where later on. 

