20 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
timber, and this chapter may be confidently recommended for 
careful study. In the growth of high-forest of oak, he 
recommends a pure growth in the first instance. Then, at 
about forty years of age, somewhat heavy thinnings should 
precede an underplanting with beech, leading in the end to a 
mature crop of oak and beech, in which the former is about 
fifty years older than the latter, which is as it should be. In 
some cases, Dr Schlich says, silver fir is to be recommended for 
underplanting instead of beech. 
The question of how best to grow larch is discussed, but the 
growing of pure larch is dismissed as a dangerous practice, 
because, if disease breaks out, it will rapidly spread over the 
whole wood. And therefore an auxiliary species is recom- 
mended, and beech is the tree chosen. How to treat pure larch 
which has developed disease is the next question considered ; 
and here, too, it is recommended to cut out the diseased larch 
and underplant with beech, or, in some cases, with silver fir, 
spruce, or Douglas fir. Finally, an interesting fact is mentioned, 
that on the Continent Scotch pine is sometimes treated by under- 
planting it with beech. This is interesting, and the excellent 
photograph by Mr R. E. Marsden shows that it has been done, 
but it would have been interesting to know what preparation, if 
any, was given to the soil. The soil, in pure Scotch pine woods, 
is apt to get dry and to become sour with the acids developed 
in the needles. To underplant with beech successfully, we pre- 
sume therefore that the soil has to be broken up. How is this 
done? . 
The Summary with which the author ends his book points 
out that only India has satisfactorily grappled with the question ; 
that a few of the colonies have done something, but that it 
remains for Australia and Canada to follow and to save the 
empire from the reproach of neglecting its forests and their 
potential capabilities. And, above all, forestry must be made to 
take, in the United Kingdom itself, a proper position, as far 
as possible analogous to that which it holds in neighbouring 
countries, and especially in France and Germany. 
