130 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



■was very evident. The spruce, as it became larger, produced a 

 similar effect, so that the forest was actually spreading by the 

 absorption of groups along its borders. 



In 1857, at the bottom of the commune lands of Malbuisson, 

 on a plateau not far from the old forest, was a very irregular but 

 almost continuous thicket. One could still walk about in the 

 cattle tracks, and even shoot hares between the dense clumps of 

 spruce, each clump with its tallest and best in the centre. To-day 

 this is probably to all appearance an even-aged crop. 



In the forest of Grand-Cote, Canton ^faclin, the southern slope 

 was entirely occupied by a beech thicket In 1857, the con- 

 servator, M. Vouzeau, and myself, at that time a Garde General, 

 both lamented the purity of the crop. Thirty years later I had 

 the satisfaction of seeing the leaders of spruce shooting up from 

 among the beech. Indeed, I have seen that in many blocks 

 covered with broad-leaved pole crops, coppice, or seedling, the 

 spruce will frequently be found, of all sizes, in the underwood, 

 some ready to break forth into the light, some patiently waiting 

 their opportunity; others too that had lost hope and died. But, 

 in the long run, it was the spruce replacing the broad-leaves. Is 

 not this likely to be how some of the splendid spruce forests of 

 the high Jura arose 1 



In this region, in the mixed forests of fir ^ and spruce, with 

 the latter in a majority, it is usual to see the spruce reproducing 

 itself beneath the firs, germination being favoured by the better 

 vegetable soil formed under the latter. There, under the cover 

 of the great firs, the spruce gathers itself together into a sort of 

 loose ball, awaiting the light from above which shall enable it to 

 shoot up to heaven. Under the spruces themselves the soil is 

 generally covered with a carpet of dead needles, the vegetable 

 soil is acid and black, and young spruces are generally absent. 

 Under the spruce it generally happens that the seedling is of 

 silver fir, whose heavier seed and longer tap-root may succeed 

 in piercing the dry or acid covering of the soil, and establishing 

 a plant ; thus groups of fir often replace groups of spruce. The 

 latter, in France and particularly in the Jura, thus presents the 

 tendency to change of place, it reproduces with difficulty on the 

 old site, and the close crops of pure spruce seem to arise from 

 seedlings originally very im equal in age and consistence. Con- 



'' Silver Fir. — Hon. Ed. Tram. 



