Home woods 25 



question of profit cannot be excluded, and to what better 

 use could one put bad land, poor rocky slopes, starved 

 sandy flats, boggy hills (as in Ireland) in wet districts, 

 and land too cold and poor to be ploughed with any 

 profit ? There is no way we can use much of such land 

 so well as by planting it with the true evergreen forest 

 trees. There is no Saturday night in the woodland ; it 

 puts on its profit without other care, adorning and 

 sheltering the land, helping the living creatures that 

 haunt the woods, and adding in many ways to the charms 

 of the country. Few know the power of evergreen 

 trees to grow on the poorest land. We cannot grow 

 Oaks on nothing, but I have seen young Pines sow 

 themselves on land from which the top soil had been 

 entirely removed by gold hunters. Many poor, cold, 

 ill-starred hill-sides of the north of England, Wales, and 

 Ireland could grow the Mountain Pines as well as they 

 grow in their native lands. The Corsican Pine makes 

 a growth of from 20 inches to 3 feet a year in a quarry 

 I know from which every bit of soil has been removed. 

 Quickness of growth. Another reason for choosing 

 evergreen trees for planting poor land is that woods can 

 be so quickly raised. If we make a right choice of 

 young plants and wire against rabbits and hares before 

 planting, we may raise sheltering woods in ten years. 

 Little plants, after a few years' struggle with the turf, 

 are soon tall enough to give us the shelter and effects 

 which only evergreen woods can give. Our climate 

 helps us if we only know how to take advantage of it, 

 because of its affinity to the sub-alpine conditions in 

 which the great Pines of the world so often grow in 

 lands below the snow-line. All the Pines of Europe are 

 easily grown as forest trees in our country, because the 



