CHAPTER X 



OF MIXED WOODS 



IN countries where forestry is best practised there is 

 much evidence of the utility of having woods formed of 

 trees of different kinds, ages, and times of cutting. The 

 reasons are many, but perhaps the most serious are the 

 following : When we plant a tree like the Larch, putting 

 them in solid masses of the same age, any disease that 

 comes to the tree is much more likely to sweep through 

 the wood than it would be if trees of various kinds were 

 intermixed. Wind, often a destroyer of trees, is far less 

 severe in the mixed wood, not only because some of the 

 kinds are wind-resisting, but also because the different 

 ages and heights of the trees help to break its force. 

 Mixed planting is more likely to lead to a better annual 

 output, as the roots of mixed trees get more out of the 

 ground than a wood of one kind of tree only. It also 

 allows us to associate light-seeking trees, like the Pines, 

 with others, like the Beech, that do well below them. It 

 commits us to no monotonous or regular mixture, for it 

 allows of varying the wood in a way that is good for it, 

 either for effect or growth, and of adapting the tree to 

 the soil. A boggy spot we may plant with Willows ; 

 a rocky knoll, with wind-resisting Beech ; a wet stretch 

 near a stream, with Spruce. 



We may see in the forest-clad mountains of the Tyrol 

 how often trees grow naturally together Larch, Scotch 

 Fir, and Norway Spruce. Where the conditions suit 



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