30 Home woods 



that good planting means big planting is a great hin- 

 drance to getting artistic results or even good timber, 

 and it is well to learn to enjoy the beauty of little trees 

 and woods, which we may raise in a few years from 

 very small plants. In many cases trees not a foot high 

 will beat those bought in nurseries a yard high. My 

 Corsican Pines came in a basket, in little bundles not 

 bigger than bunches of groundsel, and in ten years they 

 formed a handsome sheltering wood. Certainly the Pine 

 babies make a far from dignified appearance the first 

 year ; but I am content to plant small, knowing how well 

 they will grow in a very few years, and how much better 

 an effect I shall get than by planting tall plants. Now, to 

 plant in this way and get a good result for all the future 

 life of the grove, we have not only to know the greater 

 trees of the northern world as distinct in kind, in 

 beauty of form or leaf and in height, but also in relation 

 to time ; and hence arises one of the questions concern- 

 ing good planting for the future, for which all good 

 planting should be. 



We have much evidence how quickly woods may be 

 formed by planting in well-considered masses and by the 

 association of things of Hke nature, as Firs and Pines ; 

 and how a man even beginning after middle age may in 

 his own lifetime hope to see noble woods of his own 

 planting. If anj^thing in the world would be enviable 

 by a tree lover it would be the lot of one still young, 

 with much poor land to plant, as he certainly could in 

 his own lifetime raise stately forests. Such good and 

 rapid results, however, can only be got by the absolute 

 exclusion of hares and rabbits and the still worse attacks 

 of young horses or grazing creatures of any sort. 



Use little plants. The stock of the ordinary nursery. 



