ox THE CORSICAN FIR. 231 



the heights above, sand with a good percentage of lime. After the 

 State had bought up the grazing privileges exercised by the neigh- 

 bouring villagers, the slopes were planted up about twelve years 

 ago. In all sheltered localities hardwoods were planted, but on 

 the exposed places a mixture of conifers. For four reasons the 

 Corsican fir was there given the preference as regards numbers. 



1. For soils containing a good percentage of lime it is better 

 suited than any of the others, which here sooner fall a prey to the 

 red-rot (Ger., " Eothfaule "), due, according to Willkomm, to the 

 fungus Xenodochus Ugniperda, Willk.) 



2. It resists the fury of the storms better than any other 

 conifer. 



3. It improves the soil so rapidly. 



4. It scarcely suffers from frost at all. 



The course adopted has up till now given satisfaction. 



Along the roadsides near Munden one often meets with this 

 tree in groups of three or four over the Buntersand, but in 

 general they do not have a thriving and healthy appearance, 

 owing, no doubt, partly to the woods (usually only about 100 to 

 150 yards in breadth, and lying on the hill slopes between the 

 railway and the public road) not being properly taken care of, 

 and partly to the absence of a large percentage of lime in the 

 soil. 



At forest district " Stapelberg " (in the Hanoverian Ober- 

 forsterei Adelebsen, near Goettingen), the Corsican fir may be 

 seen playing the role merely of a soil-improver. The Stapelberg 

 is a single ridge of Muschelkalk, about a quarter of a mile long 

 and 160 feet high, surrounded by arable land. The soil is 

 sufficiently good for the rearing of high timber ; but, owing to 

 the hill having such an exposed position, the wood is managed 

 as coppice, which consists of beech, oak, hornbeam, maple, and 

 hazel; while here and there shrubs of Cornus, Buo7iyim(s,&c., bear 

 testimony of the soil's mineral strength. Only on single rocky 

 parts, where the rains had almost washed away the surface soil, 

 Corsican firs had been planted, and now amply fulfil what was 

 expected of them. They, of course, cannot spring from the stool 

 (among the conifers only the yew and, in youth, the larch, on 

 account of their spiral vessels, can do so), they should be left 

 standing for the present, and at the end of each turnus in after 

 years a timber stem here and there, and those dead or unhealthy 

 should alone be felled (Ger. " Fehmel " or " Planterbdricb ; " Fr. 

 " Jardinagc "). Such spots are al^^'ays difficult to plant up if 

 laid bare. 



In places where late frosts annually do damage to young 

 plants of oak, beech, &c., the Corsican fir is often sown as a 

 protection ; it grows very rapidly during the first three or four 

 years, overtopping the oaks, &c., and thus affording them a 



