488 CLOSE WOODS OR OPEN? [Dec. 



It is reached first of all and necessarily by the young "wood in 

 the thicket. The thicket stage of young wood should never be 

 disturbed nor avoided by thinning too early. The close order once 

 established in the thicket should be maintained by moderation in 

 the successive thinnings till the end or near the end of the cycle. 

 Close order implies that the foliage or spray of neighbouring trees 

 shall touch and intermingle. Thus close order is in nearly all 

 instances necessarily accompanied by close leaf and canopy and shade. 

 A distinction must, however, be made between close or complete 

 canopy and dense canopy. This distinction depends on the species 

 of tree and the character of its foliage. Dense leaf canopy is the 

 most thoroughly efficient and satisfactory, such as is supplied by the 

 foliage of the beech and several species of fir. 



There is safety and economy in close order and canopy. It has 

 already been considered that while we cannot afford the frequent 

 hoeing or delving of the forest soil, close order and canopy help 

 us out of the difficulty. Let us next consider another useful 

 property of close canopy. It eradicates all herbage and weeds when 

 it is thoroughly dense and efficient, and when the canopy is only 

 moderately complete it keeps the grass within bounds and does not 

 allow a rank growth to overrun the ground. First, in the thicket 

 stage the dense shade destroys all grass and heather, and afterwards 

 the forester, by avoiding too great severity in his thinnings, may 

 keep them from again overrunning the ground. We cannot desire 

 to take an annual crop of coarse hay off" the forest soil. Why then 

 allow the luxuriant growth of grass which is to be seen in many 



the Eoyal Wurtemburg Station for Forestry Investigations from numerous actual 

 measurements and assessments : — 



In the case of & jAantation — for the first three ages left blank above we might 

 interpolate against each the number 4840 as the number of trees per acre. There 

 would be no regi;lar thinning till the twentieth year. In or about that year the 

 thicket stage would be terminated by the first ordinary thinning. It should be 

 mentioned that these extracts refer to the first class or quality of forest soil 

 suitable for the spruce. On soil of the second class the trees would be more 

 numerous per acre, and on the third class still more numerous, but inferior in 

 height and cubic contents. 



