150 PROPERTIES OF WOOD. 



the temperature becomes less and the air moister, as in the 

 Fichtel Mountains, between Saxony and Bohemia. Other 

 causes of crookedness, but which are less important than dry 

 air, are : injuries to saplings by game ; loss of terminal bud 

 or leading shoot by snow, wind, insects, etc. ; rank growth 

 on formerly manured agricultural land ; shallow soil (rocky, 

 or with a pan, etc.). 



[Very straight lofty Irish pines grow in the moist climate 

 of Doneraile, County Cork ; also near Lake Thirlmere, the 

 wettest place in Britain, with a thirty years' average rainfall of 

 84 inches. In fact the common pine grows well everywhere 

 in the moist climate of the British Isles, provided the soil is 

 a deep sandy loam, or even deep sand with sufficient moisture 

 below, as at Woburn. Compact clay or calcareous soils, or 

 sand or gravel that is too shallow for its roots, will not 

 produce fine pines ; the best and straightest stems occur in 

 mixture with beech, or on suitable soils in the cool moist 

 climate of Scotland, where the frequent curvature of young 

 Scots pines is due chiefly to shallow notching of badly rooted 

 nursery transplants. Tr.] 



Curved stems are due chiefly to prevalent south-west 

 winds, especially on sandy soils, by which a larch stem is 

 blown from its youth out of the vertical direction, while its 

 strong upward growth contending with the wind-pressure 

 gives the tree a curved, sabre-like shape from its base to its 

 crown. This curved shape may be due also to injuries or to 

 a bending towards the light, if it be slightly overshaded by 

 another tree. In the larch a bend in one direction is not 

 counterbalanced, as in most other trees, by a subsequent bend 

 in the opposite direction, but continues in one direction only, 

 to the great deterioration of its timber. In Germany, unless 

 a thinning is made before or immediately after a crop of larch 

 has closed in, not more than 20 per cent, of the trees will 

 grow up straight. Isolated larches are nearly always curved 

 in Germany. 



[Larch in Britain appears to grow straighter with its 

 roots among boulders or in fissured rocks, even near the sea, 

 as at Weston- Super-Mare, on mountain limestone. It is 

 also straight and its heartwood_red and sound on the oolitic 



