32 Home woods 



effect of the pudding-like masses they form at first, and 

 follow no principle, the planting being too often a mixture 

 of evergreen shrubs of the south of Europe, forest trees 

 of the north, and conifers of California, or any other 

 country, in one mass, usually uniform back and front, 

 and planted for size only. In nature trees have distinct 

 habits of growth, and some notice should be taken of 

 this in planting for the sake of effect or for timber. We 

 rarely or never see a mixture of conifers, evergreens, 

 and summer-leafing trees growing naturally in one place ; 

 the Oak and the Pine run together sometimes and, as 

 we go up high mountains, the Beech and the Birch, 

 but the association ceases eventually, and we have the 

 Pine on the higher hills, as we have the Oak on the plain 

 and the Willow in the marsh. Nothing like the inco- 

 herent mixture which we see in Britain is ever seen in 

 nature, nor should be seen in any good planting. These 

 remarks as regards stupid mixed plantings are not ad- 

 dressed to the true forester, but to the many people who, 

 often with good opportunities of planting, never think of 

 the matter from that point of view ; so that we see under 

 their forest evergreens the remains of flowering shrubs 

 and rare evergreens which are quite unfit for such asso- 

 ciation, but which grouped by themselves in right posi- 

 tions would have given a beautiful result. I do not say 

 that some association with summer-leafing trees is not 

 right in the Pine wood ; in fact, such trees often come 

 by themselves. Oak, Beech, and Ash in a forest country 

 are blown in, or in some way come uninvited and often 

 with good effect. Birch and Beech might even be 

 planted among Pines ; but that way has nothing in 

 common with the mixing, which is so wrong, of hard- 

 wooded trees with Californian conifers and every con- 



