PLANTATIONS. 75 



forethought, or calculation and most particularly, 

 that no reference should be made to their suit- 

 ability or adaptation for the circumstances in 

 which they are to be placed be planted at a 

 greater cost than would have sufficed to procure 

 an ample number of the right sort. 



Upon a suitable soil, the Spruce Fir has always 

 appeared to me, to be decidedly and incomparably 

 the best nurse of the Oak. I have, for instance 

 often seen, on a clay soil, a Spruce Fir, and an 

 Oak of twenty-five years growth, flourishing ad- 

 mirably, in close proximity with each other even 

 within a foot and a half. I do not think that this 

 could be said of any other tree than the Spruce 

 Fir; but besides this, there is almost always a 

 very peculiar healthiness about the Oaks, where 

 the Spruce has been planted and cherished as the 

 principal nurse. There seems to be the best pos- 

 sible understanding between them no struggling 

 for pre-eminence no blighting influence exercised 

 by the one over the other. But the Spruce Fir is 

 not found to flourish so well on some soils as on 

 others: it will therefore, mostly, be advisable to 

 unite with it, for a number of years, the Larch , 



