40 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



proportion of "timber" {Nutzholz) ; and (3) spruce is a better 

 soil-protecting species tiian pine. The more modern school of 

 foresters, led, so far as Saxony is concerned, by Prof. 

 Borgmann of Tharandt, point out in their criticism of the 

 ^'reckless introduction of spruce" that land which may, for 

 example, only be class IV. spruce soil can very well be class 

 III. pine soil, and that, consequently, the production of wood 

 will be but little greater. Also they remind us that on poor 

 soils a very large number of spruce develop rotten stems at an 

 early period in the rotation, and again that in such places there 

 is a very great tendency for the formation of " raw humus," which 

 is particularly noxious to tree-growth, and which does not occur 

 to such a marked degree in the pine woods. To these points 

 they add the greater cost and uncertainty of spruce planting, and 

 the extreme slowness with which the young trees form canopy 

 under these circumstances, allowing in the meantime a dense 

 growth of grass and other weeds to take place. This sums up 

 shortly the differences of opinion between the spruce enthusiasts 

 and those who recognise that, even although spruce has been, as 

 it were, the making of the Saxon forests, yet its cultivation can 

 be carried too far, and that before it is allowed to replace pine, 

 the special circumstances of each case should be carefully 

 considered. 



Protectioti^ etc. — The chief danger which threatens the Saxon 

 forests lies in wind storms, as will be readily understood when 

 it is considered what an important part spruce plays in their 

 composition. Reference has already been made to the effect 

 which the storm-wind has upon the cutting direction, and it is 

 by cutting always against the wind that the greatest safety lies. 

 The main rides are also purposely made wide (27 ft.), in order to 

 allow of the formation of wind-fast edges to the " stands," which 

 may later become exposed owing to the felling of a block on the 

 other side of the ride. The cross rides used only to be made 

 6 ft. wide, but are now being made 13^ ft., in order that the 

 trees or their edges may be allowed to become to a certain 

 extent wind-fast ; and whenever a severance is made it is put 

 just to the windward of such a ride. Great care is also given to 

 protection belts on the windward boundaries, and the instructions 

 now in force are that they should be, in spruce forests, established 

 from pure spruce planted close and but little thinned, the idea 

 being to try to prevent the wind getting into the wood at all. 



