214 SYLVAN FEATURES OF CARMARTHENSHIRE. [Jan. 



SYLVAN FEATURES OF THE SOUTH-WEST PART OF 

 CARMARTHENSHIRE. 



rilHIS part of Carmarthenshire is a district of winding valle^^s, 

 J_ miniature glens, and round hills. Unlike carboniferous 

 districts generally, the scenery is picturesque. Dale and dingle 

 alternate with green elevations on which liglit and shade, sunshine 

 and storm, play. Eough hedges, beautiful in their wild luxuriance, 

 of nearly all the trees and shrubs indigenous to this western country 

 checker its undulating surface like a vast net, the meshes of which 

 are of difi'erent sizes and shapes. Collieries and other black smoky 

 works in some places slightly disfigure the landscape ; but the 

 whitewashed cottages and farm-houses that adorn the hill-sides and 

 valleys are a set-oil to these unsightly specks. It is a district 

 destitute of trees, remarkable for size or age. Its chief sylvan 

 features are coppice-woods of oak, ash, alder, and willow, and 

 plantations of larch under fifty years. They are nowhere of great 

 extent, seldom exceeding fifty acres, and are mainly situated in the 

 glens and ravines. The prevailing brine-laden south-westerly winds 

 sweep with unbroken force over a large portion of the high lands 

 and the sides of the valleys. This has prevented the trees indi- 

 genous to the country from spreading over waste lands with a 

 south-westerl}' exposure. 



Although plantations of larch and other trees are not rare, coppice- 

 woods of oak and other hardwoods, many of them of nature's 

 planting, prevail. This planter, older than the most ancient wood- 

 man, is continually at work in the dales and dingles of the district. 

 It is interesting to observe how trees spread over waste land, out- 

 side the margin of woods, by seeding. No tree does so here more 

 rapidly than the alder. It springs up in moist hollows and on the 

 banks of streams everywhere, profusely so on the lea side of woods in 

 which there are trees of its kind. When it encounters a dry knoll 

 or spot unsuitable to it in any way, it spreads out on either hand, 

 closing round such spots at length as tlie water round an island. It 

 is very tenacious of life in situations adapted to its growth, so much 

 so that it will survive after being repeatedly cropped by cattle. The 

 occupation of waste land by the oak is comparatively slow and 

 irregular. Tlie acorn is dependent for its carriage and deposition 

 in the ground on agencies less common than winds and birds. 

 Squirrels and mice are its chief carriers, and it owes its deposition 

 to moles, worms, the foot of man, and hoof of beast. It is remark- 

 able that seedlings of every kind spring up more readily on the 

 margin of woods where mole heaps and worm castings abound than 



