for any nursery crop till the following winter and spring; hence during the summer they may be sown with any grain crop that may be considered best for the district, as a remunerative return will thus be got from the ground while it necessarily lies unoccupied by any seedling crop. After the cereal crop is taken from this portion, it should be dug over in September or October, so as to rot the stubble, and improve the land before the seedlings are bedded out on it. On the border No. 11, as indicated in the diagram, it is intended to raise Hollies and Hawthorns for hedges, as allowance was made for 2000 Hollies and 12,000 Thorns. In planting the Hollies, the work is performed in the same way as with regard to the other seedlings. They may be put in 4 in. apart in rows, at a distance of 10 to 12 in.; and the Thorns may be treated similarly. The Hollies should be well watered at the time of planting, as they are very apt to suffer from drought; indeed, so far as they are concerned, it is best to transplant them during wet weather. Border No. 12 is devoted to plants requiring to be layered, such as the Lime-tree and English Elm, or engrafted like varieties of the Holly, Beech, Ash, Sycamore, and Elm. In the list on p. 107, 200 Lime-trees have been included for the purpose of layering on the border under notice; and if it should be wished to rear the English Elm also, an equal number of these may be bought for the purpose. For the mode of planting trees in the nursery-ground, and of propagating them by layering, see the details given in Vol. I. pp. 136, 137. Any practical man who wishes to become a successful engrafter should attend a short course in a public nursery, where the art is necessarily carried to the highest perfection, and where there are men capable of giving more instruction in one day on the subject, simply by teaching the hand how to operate on the subjects, than could otherwise be conveyed at all. Besides the plants for hedging, and the plants for layering and engrafting, evergreens of different kinds may be planted on borders Nos. 11 and 12, as well as transplants of new sorts of coniferæ, and cuttings of various plants that may be wanted for ornamental purposes. After these various works described have been all completed by about the end of May, it will of course be necessary to keep the seedbeds and nursery-lines free from weeds during the summer. Weeding is carried out with the hoe in dry weather before the weeds grow to any considerable size; for if the operation be left till the weeds are strong, the work becomes more costly, as well as more difficult to perform. The weeding of the seed-beds should be done in damp and cloudy weather, as then there is less likelihood of the soil coming away with their roots. Towards the close of the second autumn, say in November, it will be necessary to ascertain the actual cost incurred in the formation and establishment of the nursery. In all probability it will stand as under : Sum outstanding on nursery at the end of the first year, and as To making, say 2000 yards of roads and walks at 1s. per yard · " " " cost of tree-seeds, as detailed on p. 107, about say planting 2,340,900 plants, as above, say at 1s. per 1000 over all "expense of sowing tree-seeds, as above, say " keeping clean nursery for one summer "expense of collecting and preparing compost-heaps corn-seed for sowing 7 acres of compartments No. 10 " " " " rent of 26 acres of nursery-ground for two years, say at 30s. per acre interest on rent for the first year, and which was not entered Do. on sum outstanding at the end of the former year, at 5 per cent.. Deduct from this value of grain crop on 7 acres of No. 10, say at £10 per acre Do. value of 59,000 hardwoods, now supposed to be ready to plant out, at 30s. per 1000 Deduct value of 780,000 2-year seedlings, one year transplanted Larch, now ready to go out, say at 20s. per 1000. Do. value of 300,000 2-year seedling Pine, one year transplanted, at 10s. per 1000. £70 0 0 88 10 0 780 0 0 150 0 0 1088 10 0 £682 6 4 Sum outstanding at the end of the second year of the nursery, say at November 1893 From the foregoing statement, which is based on practical experience in Britain, it will be seen that the entire sum outstanding on the establishment at the end of the second year is £682, 6s. 4d., after deducting the value of the crops ready to be removed from it, and leaving in the nursery all the other transplanted trees, as well as the seedlings grown on compartment No. 8. Were the whole stock of such an establishment to be sold, even at the end of the second year of its establishment, it would probably recoup the proprietor for the outlay. This point should be considered by all proprietors who intend planting largely on economic methods, for there are very decided sylvicultural as well as financial advantages in raising one's own stock of plants. Trees that are nursed and grown in any given district are always more likely to thrive well than when raised in a distant part of the country and brought in for planting to a tract where the climate may be of a totally different nature. Annual Operations in the Nursery. Similar operations of planting and sowing are continued annually as long as plants are wanted. Supposing, for example, that the broad-leaved species have been cleared during 1895 from compartment No. 3, Larch from 5, 5, 5, and Scots Pine from 7, and that all of these species have been planted out, then 7 acres 1 rood in the nursery-ground may be again put under green crop, in the spring or summer of 1895, preparatory to being planted again with the same sorts of trees during 1896; while the five compartments numbered 10 are to be planted in the spring of 1895 with the young seedlings that are now supposed to be raised in compartment No. 8, in every respect in the same way as has been already described; and the seeds for crop 1896 may be sown in any part of compartment No. 10 that may be considered convenient for the purpose. In planting and sowing, attention should always be given to a convenient subdivision of the compartments in order to prevent confusion. Continental experience, on a far larger sylvicultural scale than is physically possible in Britain, has shown that the raising of green crops, in the manner above recommended by the author, is unnecessary. But the editor need not on this point reiterate his convictions already expressed on pp. 103 and 126. Selection of Plants for Purchase. Every proprietor who has occasion to plant must either have his own nursery or else supply himself from some nurseryman. In the latter case only healthy plants should be selected, and of such a nature as may be suitable for the situation on which they are intended to be planted out. The proprietor should either himself visit, or cause his forester to visit, during the summer previous to the planting season, any nursery from which he intends to purchase his supply of young seedlings or transplants, in order to see that the stock of young plants is of a strong, robust character, in a clean, healthy state, and free from attacks of fungoid disease or noxious insects. This may by many be considered unnecessary; but every experienced planter will be convinced of its necessity. Fungoid diseases are epidemic, and therefore diseased trees from a nursery may cause propagation of the same disease through several plantations in the neighbourhood. No respectable nurseryman would be guilty of intentionally sending diseased trees to any of his customers; but every planter or forester should, previous to making a purchase, go and visit the nursery-grounds, and judge for himself as to whether he shall buy or not. The proper time for such a visit is during the months of July or August, when the plants are in full leaf, and in their most vigorous growth. During these months all the young plants should have the bark VOL. II. I of the stem and branches quite clean and free from any appearance of scale or lice; and when a little of the upper cuticle is removed with the finger-nail, the bark underneath should be of a pure, healthy, transparent green colour. The epidermis or upper cuticle of a young plant in perfect health should be easily removable from the inner bark. It is also advisable to revisit the same grounds about the middle of October or early in November, in order to make the purchases required for the season; and it is absolutely necessary to bear in mind the nature of the soil and the situation to be planted. If the land be a thin soil upon a high situation, such plants should be chosen from the nursery as have stood rather wide in the rows, have had free air and room, and are rather of a low-set bushy character and a hardy appearance. For high situations the most suitable plants are one year's transplanted Pine, Larch, Spruce, and Fir, and broad-leaved species not exceeding 2 ft. in height. If tall slender plants, which have made long shoots of young wood during the previous summer, be chosen for such a situation, they will be sure to find difficulty in establishing themselves; and it is more than probable that many of them will die. If the situation to be planted be low, sheltered, and with a good soil, somewhat tall well-grown plants may be chosen; for in such situations there is generally a tendency towards rank growth of grass, and unless the young plants be large they are apt to be choked by the herbage surrounding them. Above all, it is necessary that the young plants chosen should have a well-developed rootsystem with plenty of small fibrous rootlets and root-hairs, as these are the mouths by which the plant imbibes its food-supply of soluble salts from the soil. In rather a light and humose soil the roots of young plants are generally good; but if the soil be stiff and heavy, there is a risk of the roots being indifferently developed so as to have but few small fibres; and transplants with few fibrous roots, especially those of coniferous species of trees, do not establish themselves easily when planted out. Lifting and Packing.-Careful lifting of the young plants from the seed-beds or nursery-lines is necessary in order duly to protect the roots. Pine seedlings or transplants in particular, if lifted out of the beds carelessly, are apt to lose a large portion of their roots; and consequently they have then greater difficulty in establishing themselves later on. All plants that run to a strong tap-root, such as Pine, Larch, and Oak in particular, require careful treatment at the time of lifting and transplanting. In the case of Oaks that are to be used for coppice-woods, damage to the root system is not of so much consequence; but, for the formation of young high-forest crops, it is essential to protect the root-system as well as possible. This is, of course, another argument, beside the purely financial point of view, for the use of small seedlings wherever the soil and situation will permit of it. In purchasing the rarer sorts of coniferous trees from public nurseries, foresters should be very careful to see that they have not been tenderly reared in pits or frames; for if so, they will not have a fair chance of thriving, even if planted out on a moderately sheltered locality. All plants of this class should have stood at least two years in the open beds before being sent from the nursery. When making purchases from nurseries, foresters should, if possible, have the plants lifted under their own superintendence, and removed before leaving the ground. Usually the nurserymen will be found willing to place workmen at their particular disposal for the time; and in this way all the young trees may be lifted and packed in the most careful and satisfactory manner. In the pressing season of lifting orders in nurseries, the months of November and March, common untrained labourers have often to be employed in lifting plants that must be sent off by rail the same evening. In such cases these plants are often not sufficiently loosened. by the men with the spades before those following pull them up from the earth; hence a large proportion of the fibres must get broken off. This of itself is objectionable; but when the plants have been tied up into bundles, their roots are sometimes allowed to lie exposed to the frosty air or the drying influence of the sun, thus exhausting the vitality of the plants, and rendering them more or less unfit for transplanting. But if personal attention be given by foresters to the lifting, packing, and transport of the planting material selected by them, then as a rule there is less probability of the plants wilting or drooping for a considerable period when they are put out on arrival at their destination. At the time of packing for any lengthy transport it is advisable to mulch the roots of all naked seedlings in a loamy mixture, and to keep in the moisture by packing the roots in damp moss. |