90 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



mixed plantations, are the oak, ash, elm, sycamore, cherry, 

 and lime. They do not all increase equally in bulk of trunk, 

 but when judiciously mixed they do not smother each other, 

 and the same soil and conditions suit them all. The species 

 unsuitable for a mixed plantation are the poplar, willow, beech, 

 Spanish chestnut, bkch and alder. The two first prefer a 

 wet soil, and the poplar overtops all other species in a destruc- 

 tive fashion. The two should therefore go together, the poplar 

 being planted thickly and under-planted with the willow. 

 The beech is a bad tree in a mixed wood owing to its great 

 shade-bearing power, which enables it to retain its lower 

 branches, which push out and usurp the surrounding space, 

 smothering everything near it. This is the reason why beech 

 trees in mixed woods are usually found full of limbs and occu- 

 pying so much space. Grown by itself, or with its equals, 

 like the Spanish chestnut, for example, it behaves differently, 

 producing a tall, cylindrical trunk of fine timber. The birch 

 may be planted in mixed woods, where it will keep pace in 

 height-growth with the other species till well past middle-age, 

 but the trunks are usually small. Planted with the oak alone 

 it is seen at its best, and the oak does well with it, and both 

 may be planted thickly. The French also recommend the 

 birch as a companion to the oak. Referring to the beech 

 again, it may be used for under-planting in mixed woods with 

 every prospect of it growing well and of the right shape, 

 always provided that it is planted after the general crop has 

 got well-established and grown up to a good height The 

 beech has not hitherto been nearly so much used as an under- 

 wood as it might have been. We have seen it sixty feet high 

 under the deep shade of a spruce forest in the Hartz Moun- 

 tains, and in numerous cases in this country found it growing 

 well under the shade of other trees where no other broad- 

 leaved species would have long survived, except the hornbeam 

 and horse chestnut. 



SECTION V. GENERAL MIXTURES OF BROAD-LEAVED 

 SPECIES AND CONIFERA. 



Where it is desired to plant some of the conifera among 

 broad-leaved species, the larch, Scotch and Corsican firs, Pinus 

 excelsa, Pinus strobus, common and silver spruces and others 

 may be planted. These will give effect to the plantation from 

 a landscape point of view, and afford shelter to game, but the 



