188G.J LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 773 



to your judgment on a point of some importance to me. With 

 apologies for troubling you with such a matter, I remain, yours 

 faithfully, Sylva. 



P.>S^. — I should perhaps mention that the soil is a good loam, and 

 though in some parts rather moist, could not he called wet, and that 

 the aspect is eastern, inclining to south. 



[The question as to whether land newly cleared of timber should 

 be immediately replanted is one on which authorities difler some- 

 what. There are those who say it would be an error to do so, as 

 the land is believed by them to be exhausted and unfit to carry 

 another crop of the same kind, that is, timber of any sort ; and that 

 it should undergo a course of fallow or rest of three or four years. 

 The argument is plausible, but is not supported by experience. The 

 assumption that the land is exhausted is gratuitous, or at best based 

 on erroneous ideas as to the necessity of rotation in the case of 

 timber crops. The case of natural forests need only be instanced 

 to show the fallacy of such a belief. In these the work of repro- 

 duction of the same kinds of trees goes on in perpetuity, — barring 

 the accident of oft-repeated fires, which destroys the trees and alters 

 the physical conditions of both the soil and the climate, so that the 

 same class of vegetation cannot exist, — without any diminution of 

 ^■igour in the successive crops. All ages of trees may be seen in 

 these forests, from the patriarch of a hundred or more years to the 

 tiny seedling which has only started into existence with the current 

 year, and all are alike promising and thrifty in their degree. 

 This at least shows that where the soil and other conditions are 

 favourable, there need be no question as to the propriety of planting 

 newly cleared land with the same kind or kinds of trees as those 

 which have occupied it for the comparatively limited period of fifty 

 years. Your land in your position appears to be eminently well 

 fitted for hardwood trees, such as oak, ash, beech, elm, and sycamore, 

 and we should advise you to plant these and any others that the 

 demand in your neighbourhood may suggest as desirable in prefer- 

 ence to firs of any kind, except these are more marketable with you. 

 Or the hardwoods may be planted with the intention of becoming 

 the permanent crop, and larch and Scotch firs as nurses, to be 

 removed in the course of thinning by and by.] 



COUNT BE CARS BOOK. 



SIR, — My remarks on Count de Cars' hrochnrc on pruning were 

 directed against the abuse of the art. 

 I use it myself, and so cannot condemn others for using it, and 

 should be very sorry to see landed proprietors cashier their foresters. 



o D 



