ARBORICULTURE IN HAMPSHIRE. 45 



yards instead of oak, is also obsolete. Oak bark, which formerly 

 sold readily for £12 or £13 per ton, is now difficult to dispose 

 of at one-third the amount ; still the oak continues a favourite 

 tree, and is cultivated extensively not only as coppice timber, but in 

 forming new plantations from acorns or transplanted trees. It is 

 very accommodating in regard to soil and situation, but luxuriates 

 in a deep heavy loam resting on a substratum, through which 

 water percolates freely. When the roots meet with obstructions 

 in passing through the strata, the stem and large limbs pursue a 

 similar deviating course, which produces those knees and elbows 

 once so valuable, and still so picturesque. This character is most 

 distinctly seen when the oak is planted in a heavy soil superin- 

 cumbent on chalk. While the roots remain in the surface soil, 

 the tree grows rapidly and erect ; but as the roots approach the 

 chalk the vigour decreases, and it acquires a bushy habit of 

 growth. This peculiarity is strongly marked In several enclosures 

 of the New Forest ; not from the roots coming in contact with 

 chalk, but from being planted in poor, gravelly soils, equally un- 

 suited to their healthy development. The New Forest, on the 

 whole, is well adapted for oak, but there are extensive tracts of 

 light, gravelly moorland, which can never produce oak of large 

 size. To plant such tracts with oak-trees and Scotch fir would be 

 injudicious. All soils capable of producing a healthy crop of oaks 

 will grow larch firs, the best nurses for hardwoods. They occupy 

 less space than Scotch firs, are more valuable at all ages, do not 

 overtop the permanent trees so soon, require less attention to pre- 

 vent damage to the main crop, promote a better circulation of 

 air, and are decidedly the most appropriate nurse trees. When 

 Scotch fir and oaks ai*e planted together, one or other of the crops 

 is out of place. If the land is not good enough to grow larch of 

 useful size, oaks are certainly not admissible ; and if it is capable 

 of producing healthy oaks, Scotch firs should be discarded for a 

 better nurse, and more profitable tree. When oaks are planted 

 in poor moorland soil, a large proportion never start into gi-owth, 

 and those that become established take such devious paths in 

 search of food, that they soon exhibit the same peculiarity as 

 those planted on the chalk formation of North Hants. Such a 

 case, however, would not be a fair example of the capabilities of 

 the New Forest to produce navy timber. In former times, some 

 of the finest oak timber sent to our Government dockyards was 

 supplied from it, and it still boasts of many magnificent trees, 



