188G.] THE SURFACE CULTURE OF FOREST TREES. G77 



tlie power of the roots to absorb water, and the latter, again, is not 

 only a food of plants, but the great diluent tliat renders the con- 

 version of food into plant tissues possible, as well as the preserver 

 in useful condition of tlie open channels of nutrition and elabora- 

 tion, through which timber and other vegetable product, are built 

 up and completed. Hence surface culture, apparently so simple, so 

 easily attended to, so frequently neglected, may be said to Ijo the very 

 basis of success in tindjer growing. In this great national enterprise, 

 the whole difference between substantial profit and serious loss lies 

 mostly in the start. CJive young trees a fillip at starting, they 

 will mostly retain this great coign of vantage through the whole <jf 

 their life, and this on the principle that runs through vegetable and 

 other forms of life that like produces its like. Thus vigour results 

 in vigour, as weakness reproduces weakness, through a deep 

 descending series of decadences, till utter uselessness and irrecover- 

 able loss are reached. Xow, by careful attention to surface culture 

 for the first three or five years of the youth of plantations, the majority 

 will have made such progress that it may be almost dispensed with. 

 We live in stirring times. The express train has been superseded 

 by the telegraph, the latter by the telephone. Baby beef, reaching 

 maturity within eighteen months or two years of calfhood, is driving 

 the beef of old-fashioned feeders out of the markets and robbing 

 them of their profits. Timber production to be profitable must be 

 pursued in harmony with the spirit of the times. It can be forced 

 along in a young state, not only without injury, but with positive 

 benefit to its future progress and the quality of its produce ; and one 

 of the cheapest modes of forcing young trees into harmony with the 

 go-ahead spirit of the times is surface culture. It only needs 

 labour, which is almost too plentiful as well as sufficiently cheap at 

 the present time. The old method of sub-cropping plantations with 

 green crops, such as potatoes, carrots, etc., paid many times over for 

 the cost of the surface culture. The chief objection to these is that the 

 value of the crops is so great that they were often planted too thickly, 

 and the culture was at times too deep for the welfare of the trees. 

 These two evils safeguarded against — these or other temporary crops 

 may be used without injury to the trees or serious impoverishment 

 of the soil ; provided always that the present stimulus and future 

 prosperity of the trees are held to be vital — the profits on the sub- 

 crops of mere secondary importance. But with or without sub- 

 cropping, every young plantation should be subjected to skilful 

 surface culture for the first few years of its life. The period of its 

 profitable duration would be largely determined by the soil, situation, 

 species of trees planted, thickness or thinness, and the mode of 

 planting, etc. Of course it might be impracticable after tlie slit 



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