A VISIT TO DR SCHLICH'S FORESTS AT MIRWART. L'43 



for spruce, the White (Weymouth) pine has been substituted 

 for it. 



Five-Hundred Acre Forest of Hardwoods. 



Here, though the stock was deficient, and the annual increment 

 much below what it should have been, the crop was far better 

 than that found in Grand Campe, but the proportion of oak was 

 too small. The treatment laid down was to pick out the thinner 

 parts, where the scantiness of the crop was not due to poverty 

 of soil, and to extend them by thinnings, made with a view 

 to the planting of one-year-old oak seedlings to the number of 

 8000 to the acre, or about 2 feet 4 inches apart. It had originally 

 been intended to introduce the oak by dibbling in acorns at in- 

 tervals of 12 to 15 inches, but this intention had to be abandoned 

 owing to the depredations committed by mice. After about ten 

 years, when the young oaks have had time to establish them- 

 selves, the denser parts of the wood will be regenerated for 

 beech ; and the result will be a mixed forest of oak and beech, 

 arranged in groups, the oak being at least ten years older than 

 the beech. 



At Mirwart, it is not advisable to leave isolated beech standards, 

 as they are liable to injury, inducing disease, occasioned by the 

 direct impact of the sun's rays on their exposed stems, especially 

 during severe frost. Beech standards also expand their crowns 

 too widely, and grow into trees of small value. 



Oak Coppice on a Southern Slope. 



A worn-out coppice. The open spaces had been planted up 

 with oak seedlings, which were destined to grow into standards, 

 and to yield additional and vigorous stools for coppice. In places 

 where the soil is very poor, Scots pine had been planted between 

 the stools. 



Ribelle Rose. 



A very irregular beech-wood, consisting chiefly of poles with 

 some trees of larger size, and a few oaks ; also some naturally 

 sown beech seedlings, in patches up to ten years old. 



The treatment was to be as follows, viz. : — 



(a) To widen openings over natural growth of beech, and thus 

 permit its extension. 



