THE NATURAL REGENERATION OF WOODS. 69 
the quality of the seed-bed will suffer severely, and the labour 
expended upon it may be for the most part lost. 
Not only do the advance-fellings, if properly performed, prepare 
the seed-bed, and adapt the trees to offer greater resistance to storms, 
but they also induce the mother-trees to produce a large crop of 
seeds. This is the natural result of admitting light to the lower 
branches of the crowns, and is most apparent in cold districts, such 
as high regions, and north or east slopes. 
In many woods one finds scattered here and there in small 
groups, or as single specimens, young trees which have sprung from 
naturally sown seed. These usually occupy the somewhat opener 
parts of the wood, which are accessible to direct sunlight, but 
whether they should be retained and fostered or be cleared away, 
depends on such circumstances as species and quality. If they 
belong to a kind of tree which it is considered desirable to have 
represented in the new wood, it is well to retain them, and to 
encourage their development by cutting out the old trees in their 
vicinity which are interfering with their growth, provided they have 
not grown so long in restricted light as to be incapable of ultimate 
normal development. Most in this respect depends upon species. 
Silver firs, for instance, have wonderful recuperative power, and 
may exist for more than fifty years in dense shade, and still retain 
their vital powers practically unimpaired. During this time they 
will have made but slow growth—the wood rings, in fact, will often 
be found to be of hair-like fineness—but when gradually placed in 
the possession of a greater amount of light, the foliage increases in 
quantity and becomes darker in colour, the wood-rings become 
broader, the leading shoot lengthens, and in a few years what before 
seemed a stunted bush acquires all the characters of a vigorously 
growing tree. 
In a close, or moderately close, wood any advance growth which 
may be met with must, from the very nature of things, consist of 
some shade-bearing species of tree, for no young light-demanding 
tree could exist for any length of time under such conditions. 
Where, however, the wood is open, or where blanks have been 
occasioned by any cause, advance growth of such light-demanding 
trees as the Scots pine, birch, etc., may be met with. It is but 
seldom, however, that such advance growth can be utilised, for, if 
light-demanding trees have become stunted when young, they never 
recover to such an extent as to form desirable objects for future 
encourgement. They should, therefore, be cut out in the pre- 
