1885.] CLOSE WOODS Olt OPEN? 487 



planted than can ever possibly come to maturity ? We shall be 

 told, probably, that the extra plants are put there for the purpose of 

 nursing those v/Iiich are to form the permanent crop. This explana- 

 tion, although it makes use of a figurative expression a little wanting 

 perhaps in defniiteness, may yet be accepted as a correct and 

 comprehensible answer. It is not, however, by any means the whole 

 answer or explanation. Tlie essential reason why we plant a great 

 many more trees than can survive is because the forest soil requires 

 to be sheltered from sun, wind, and weather. Unless it be so 

 sheltered and preserved, even the first single crop of timber would 

 fall off in its later growth, and still more does the protection of the 

 soil appear necessary when we consider that it has to bear many 

 future wood crops in succession, although it can very seldom enjoy 

 the benefit of the spade, fork, or hoe, and although the addition of 

 carried manure it never at any time receives. 



In order that the soil may be fertile and active for the production 

 of wood, it must be porous, friable, and of rather loose consistency, 

 so as to permit of aeration and the penetration of carbonic acid gas 

 and the other gases. This physical condition of the soil is promoted, 

 and after lapse of long periods even produced, by close order of trees 

 completely occupying and covering its area. What is perhaps 

 equally worthy of our consideration is that when porosity and 

 granulation of the soil is once accomplished, as it may be sometimes 

 artificially at the time of planting, this physical condition and 

 favourable consistency v/ill be preserved and continued by the 

 maintenance of close order. Close order of trees, with close and 

 continuous leaf canopy, shades against the sun and prevents heavy 

 showers from beating directly on to the ground, thus protecting it from 

 two influences which together tend to cake it and harden it. Again, 

 the many roots of the trees, including also the decaying roots of 

 those which have been removed in the successive thinnings, help to 

 swell and loosen the surface of the soil. Thus, close order of the 

 trees comes to be recognised as tlie most effective agency which can 

 practically be employed in the woods as a substitute for frequent 

 spading or ploughing. 



By close order it is intended to convey that the trees shall be as 

 numerous on the area occupied as is consistent with the healthy 

 development of the great majority of them, but more numerous than 

 would be quite consistent with the continued existence for five or 

 ten years longer of the wliole of them.-^ 



^ The following figures may perhaps give a more tangible idea of what 

 constitutes close order. The example refers, however, only to the spruce fir. 

 It has been extracted and reduced to English measure from a table compiled by 



