PLANTING. 41 



soil than the above, plants from eighteen to twenty-four inches in height 

 of the fir tribes may be planted with advantage ; and deciduous trees, as 

 the oak, chestnut, elm, &c., from three to four feet in height, may be 

 planted at the distance of five feet apart. In the last case a return of 

 profits from thinnings will be obtained at least two years earlier than from 

 transplanted seedlings, under the like circumstances of soil. Trees 

 planted as nurses for assisting the progress of those intended for timber 

 are of quick growth, and in the course of from seven to twelve years will 

 have attained to a size fit for the purposes of fencing, or to be used as 

 poles, coopers' ware, &c., according to local demand. When the nurse 

 trees have arrived at this stage of growth, they will require to be partially 

 thinned, to make room for the timber trees, or principals of the planta- 

 tion, as they are termed. Whenever the branches of the former interfere 

 with those of the latter, no time should be lost in remedying the evil, by 

 pruning the nurse trees, or cutting them down. If the different operations 

 of planting have been judiciously performed, the value of the trees thinned 

 out at this period will cover the rent of the land, with compound interest 

 on the capital expended in planting it. Hence the importance of nurse trees, 

 and the propriety of furnishing the ground at first with a sufficient number 

 of young plants to be cut down and taken away periodically, until the 

 principal timber trees have attained to maturity. In poor soils, where the 

 original outlay of capital and the rent of the land are both small, the ex- 

 penditure will be covered by the periodical crop of thinnings, and vice 

 versa in better soils, authorizing a larger expenditure in the preparation, in 

 the size of the plants, and in the mode of planting, a comparatively 

 superior number of trees of increased value will be produced at each 

 periodical thinning. These results are certain to follow judicious planting. 



The third and last mode of rearing forest trees proposed to be discussed 

 at the head of this chapter, is that of selecting the superior shoots ot 

 coppice stools, and training them to full-grown timber trees. The oak, 

 on account of the value of its bark, is more frequently reared in this way 

 than the elm*, ash, and chestnut. The timber of coppice trees is in 

 general faulty, and of inferior quality to that reared from seeds. Where 

 care, however, is taken in the selection of the shoots from healthy and 

 not over-aged coppice stools, timber of the best quality may be obtained 

 from them. 



The produce of coppice stools consists of materials for fence wood, fuel, 

 besoms, &c. Poles and bark are the most valuable of this produce, where 

 the practice is to leave no standards, or saplings for timber. It is, how- 

 ever, perfectly clear, that when a wood or coppice offers to the purchaser 

 produce of various sizes convertible to various uses, along with full-grown 

 limber for navy purposes, the sale is more readily effected, and generally 

 on better terms, than when the produce consists of smaller wood only. 

 In making choice of the shoots of coppice stools to be trained for timber 

 trees, great care should be had to select none but such as are straight and 

 vigorous, arid which originate as near to the roots of the stool as pos- 

 sible. The neglect of this latter circumstance is the chief cause of the 

 unsoundness of coppice-reared timber, particularly at the root or butt end 

 of the bole. The parent wood of coppice stools is most frequently suffered 

 to rise too high from the roots, consequently the shoots emitted from it never 

 grow with so much vigour, or attain to so great a size in a given space of 



* A great part of the elms (ulmvs campestris) reared in Devonshire are from foyers, 

 and frequently defective at the most valuable part. Vide Vancouver's Survey of Devon. 



One or two fertile tracts in Devon, where the soil is of the nature termed red sand- 

 stone, is more favourable to the growth of the elm than to any other tree. Mr. Kingston. 



