84 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



seen, have produced a second and third crop of timber from 

 the same stools. These examples are mentioned to show 

 under what poor conditions, as regards soil, timber-trees will 

 thrive, for, unless the Wharncliffe trees were there to speak 

 for themselves, I have no doubt that even some practical 

 foresters would hardly believe that they could grow under 

 such conditions. On the same rocks, about one thousand 

 feet above the sea, on a peaty sod two or three inches deep, 

 we have the Corsican Pine (Pinus Laricio) growing beautifully 

 and beating the larch and Scotch fir. 



" Not less remarkable than the size of the trees produced in 

 poor soils is the variety of poor soils in which the same species 

 will thrive. At Lord Salisbury's, at Hatfield, I was much 

 struck by the great size of the oaks, limes, yews, and the usual 

 forest-trees, when noticing at the same time in the kitchen- 

 garden close by that the pure chalk was turned up everywhere 

 at a spade's depth. Equally striking are both the young and 

 old plantations on the deep, poor sandstone in some parts of 

 Nottinghamshire. In Thoresby Park the sandstone is of 

 great depth, and the surface soil is so poor that only high 

 culture keeps it up to the mark. Yet the size and health of 

 both young and old trees there are remarkable, though, accord- 

 ing to Professor McConnell, Sherwood Forest, with its great 

 oak trees, lies on a member of the Upper New Red Sandstone, 

 where the surface soil is ' a barren gravel.' So at Bourne- 

 mouth, again, there are extensive and thriving tracts of Scotch 

 and other firs growing, for the most part, on pure sand-banks. 

 In the Highlands of Scotland, again, in many parts, the size of 

 the larch and Scotch fir trees, growing in very poor soils, has 

 often excited the surprise of travellers, for in many places the 

 soil consists of poor ,peat or gravel only. In the part of 

 Yorkshire where I live, I daresay travellers have often noticed 

 considerable tracts near collieries covered by deep mounds 

 locally called ' pit-hills.' These hills, which consist wholly of 

 a poor blue shale, brought out of the coal pits in getting the 

 coal, do not contain a particle of what one would call ' soil/ and 

 would probably be regarded as the worst rooting medium that 

 could be found. Yet it grows timber trees. About thirty 

 years ago some of these pit-hills on the Wortley estate were 

 planted with a general mixture of forest trees, which now form 

 a dense and thriving plantation. In short, the indifference of 

 forest trees to their rooting medium, so long as the moisture is 

 sufficient, is surprising, and I lay stress on the point to show 

 that however unfit for farming purposes, and however poor land 

 may be, it will almost certainly grow good timber. 



