THE CULTIVATION OF HARDWOODS. 45 



the desired growth in height ; and so much is this the case, that 

 in middle life the ground may become stocked with trees having 

 short stems, large crowns, affording an unsatisfactory canopy, 

 and with an undergrowth of all manner of herbage, all of which 

 conditions are — as is well known — opposed to good results. In the 

 end, when the final crop is removed, the return will be very far 

 short of what the locality was capable of producing had the 

 ground been properly stocked and the crop properly managed, 

 or even had the ground been properly stocked and the crop left 

 to nature. Further, in all probability, the soil will have seriously 

 deteriorated, and have been rendered unfit for restocking with 

 anything but trees of an inferior class. If this is the result 

 obtained by the system with an expensive management, it is 

 surely proof that there is something very far wrong with it. It 

 may be argued, however, that the fault is not in the system, but 

 in the management ; and that, if the crop had been left to itself, 

 the result would have been more satisfactory. Undoubtedly 

 there can be no better test applied, than to allow nature a free 

 hand, because any piece of ground if properly stocked, and left 

 to nature until middle life, will give successful results if properly 

 handled thereafter. In the case of such complex mixtures as are 

 under discussion, there may be instances where nature has 

 guided the development to a satisfactory result ; but, with such a 

 foundation to work upon, she is handicapped ; and, although she 

 can do much in the way of rectifying man's errors, there are many 

 cases where her efforts prove ineffectual. Where such mixtures 

 are left to nature, it will occasionally happen that the final crop 

 is a hardwood one ; but it is much more likely that in early 

 life the conifers will gain the ascendency over the hardwoods, and, 

 in the final crop, there will be a preponderance of the nurses on 

 the ground. The reason of this is that the majority of the 

 hardwoods will have been overtopped in the first fifteen or twenty 

 years, the only exceptions being those individual trees which — 

 on good situations — have become quickly established, and have 

 been able to hold their own with the quick-growing conifers. 

 Thus it is that the best nature can do gives but poor results. 

 Instead of a hardwood crop, we have a crop of conifers with a 

 few of the hardwoods dotted through it, a crop which, financially, 

 may be quite as much a success as one which had received 

 careful attention in order to preserve the hardwoods ; but which 

 is by no means a success in the true sense, because the ground 



