Mr Cruickshank next brings forward his plan of raising oak forest, which appears to have been his own invention, although invented before. Whenever mice and other gnawers (glires) are not very abundant, it, if properly executed, would seem to be the best method of raising oak forest; and, indeed, in many situations, the only practicable one. Mr Cruickshank’s method coincides nearly with Mr Sang’s, only he does not carry his system of protection so far as Mr Sang, in first raising belts of the most hardy kinds of timber, distributed to windward of, and intersecting the place intended to be planted, in such a manner as to afford the best possible shelter from the coldest most destructive {352} winds. Mr Cruickshank, who has never carried his plan into execution, except in an experiment embracing a few yards, directs that the ground intended for oak forest should first be planted with Scots fir and larch, about 4000 to the acre, by the single-notch process, previously described, which can be accomplished under L. 1 per acre. As soon as these have risen to four feet in height, he prepares patches about two feet square and ten feet distant in the interstices, by digging the soil over, and mixing a spadeful of slaked lime carefully with the mould, taking out a tree whenever the interstices do not suit for the patches. He then plants, in the end of March or beginning of April, five acorns in each patch, about an inch deep, one in the centre, and the other four in the angles of a foot square, and gives them no farther attention for two years, except removing any overhanging low fir branch. He then goes over the patches, cutting out all the supernumerary plants, a few inches below the surface, leaving the most promising one on each patch, being very careful not to disturb any of its roots in cutting out the others. As these oak plants extend in size, he gradually removes the fir.