1 1/2 day of a planter, at 2s. 0 3 0 ――――――――― L.1 0 0 Although our author speaks so confidently of the success of transplanting out firs at one and two years of age, yet this must only be taken under limitation to the country in which his experience has lain,—the barren mountains and moors of Scotland, where the vegetation of the heaths is extremely slow, and the herbage both thin and short. Were these small plants used in the superior climates of England and Ireland, where the vegetation of the grasses, and {347} other natural occupiers of the soil, is very luxuriant, there would scarcely be one in a hundred that would ever be seen after the first spring, unless a very expensive cultivation to check the weeds were resorted to. To effect economical planting in these soils, it is necessary to have the plants sufficiently large, not too close together, and placed in rows, that a mower may be able to distinguish them among the herbage while he cuts it down; or what is much better, that the spade or plough[65] culture may be {348} practised, and potatoes, turnips, or other green crop, raised among them, without the plants being overwhelmed. In case of grass production, the oftener during the season the young plantation is mown, the more advantageous, as well that the plants may be the more easily distinguished, as that the lower branches may not be smothered, nor the soil so much exhausted and dried by the blooming and seeding of the herbage; of course, a short scythe is required, and also a very careful mower. Speaking of the best season for planting, Mr Cruickshank states:— “In wet and swampy soils, as well as in land, whether dry or moist, whose surface is bare, I would be inclined to prefer the spring. Wet land swells to such a degree, that plants which have not had time to take a firm hold with their roots, are almost {349} inevitably thrown out.”—“These remarks have reference only to the system of planting by notching: when the pitting system is adopted, it fixes the plant so thoroughly, as to render the utmost power of frost incapable of doing them any injury.”—“The utmost limits of the planting season may be estimated from the middle of October to the middle of March.”—“I am a decided advocate for thick planting, and would advise that no fewer than 3000 trees per acre be planted in good land, nor a less number than 4000 when the soil is of a middling or inferior quality.”