Book II. 



SOILS FOR TREES. 



569 



Sect. I. Of the Soils and Situations which may be most profitably employed in 

 Timber Plantation. 



3631. As a general jrrinciple of guidance in plantings it may be laid down that lands fit 

 for the purposes of aration should not be covered with wood. Where particular pur- 

 poses are to be obtained, as shelter, fencing, connection, concealment, or some other 

 object, portions of such lands may require to be wooded ; but in regard to profit, these 

 portions will always be less productive than if they were kept under the plough. The 

 profits of planting do not depend on the absolute quantity of timber produced, but on 

 that quantity relatively to the value of the soil for agricultural purposes. Suppose a 

 piece of ground to let at 20s. per acre, for pasture or aration, to be planted at an expense 

 of only 10/. per acre ; then in order to return the rent, and 51. per cent, for the money 

 expended, it ought to yield 30s. a year ; but as the returns are not yearly, but say at the 

 end of every fifteen years, when the whole may be cut down as a copse, then the amount 

 of 30s. per annum, at 51. per cent, compound interest, being 32/. 8s., every fall of copse 

 made at the interval of fifteen years ought to produce that sum per acre clear of all ex- 

 penses. Hence, with a view to profit from the fall of timber, or copse wood, no situation 

 capable of much agricultural improvement should be planted. 



3632. The fittest situations for planting extensively are hilly, mountainous, and rocky- 

 surfaces ; where both climate and surface preclude the hope of ever introducing the 

 plough ; and where the shelter afforded by a breadth of wood will improve the adjoining 

 farm lands, and the appearance of the country. Extensive moors and gravelly or sandy 

 soils may often also be more profitably occupied by timber trees than by any other crop, 

 especially near a sea-port, coaleries, mines, or any other source of local demand. 



3633. On all hilly and irregular surfaces various situations will be indicated by the lines 

 offences, roads, the situations of buildings, ponds, streams, &c. where a few trees, or a 

 strip, or mass, or row, may be put in with advantage. We would not, however, advise 

 the uniform mode of planting recommended by Pitt in his Survey of Staffordshire, and in 

 The Code of Agriculture ; that of always having a round clump in the point of intersection of 

 the fences of fields. This we conceive to be one of the most certain modes ever suggested 

 of deforming the surface of a country by planting; the natural character of the surface 

 would be counteracted by it, and neither variety nor grandeur substituted ; but a mono- 

 tony of appearance almost as dull and appalling as a total want of wood. 



3634. Near all buildings a few trees may in general be introduced ; carefully however 

 avoiding gardens and rick yards, or to shade low buildings. In general fewest trees 

 should be planted on the south side of cottages ; and next on their north-west side ; 

 farms and farm buildings in very exposed situations {fig. 453.) and also lines of cottages, 

 may be surrounded or planted on the exposed side by considerable masses. 



3635. Wherever shelter or shade is required plantations are of the first consequence, 

 whether as masses, strips, rows, groups, or scattered trees; all these modes may occa- 

 sionally be resorted to with advantage even in farm lands. 



3636. Wherever a soil cannot by any ordinary process be rendered ft for corn or grass, and 

 will bear trees, it may be planted as the only, or perhaps the best mode of turning it to 

 profi.t. There are some tracts of thin stony or gravelly surfaces covered with moss, or 

 very scantily with heath, and a few coarse grasses, which will pay for no improvement 

 whatever, excepting sowing with the seeds of trees and bushes. These growing up will, 

 after a series of years, form a vegetable soil on the surface. The larch, Scotch pine, birch, 

 and a species of rough moorland willow (salijc) are the only woody plants fit for such soils. 



3637. Wherever trees will pay better than any other crop they will of course be planted. 

 Tliis does not occur often, but occasionally in the case of willows for baskets and hoops, 

 which are often the most profitable crop on moist deep rich lands ; and ash for hoops and 

 crate ware, on drier, but at the same time deep and good soils. 



Sect. II. Of the Trees suitable for dfferent Soils, Situations, and Climates. 



3638. Every species of tree loill grow in any soil, provided it be rendered sufficiently dry; 

 but the effects of soils on trees are very different, according to the kind of tree and the 

 situation. A rich soil and low situation will cause some trees, as the larch and common 

 pine, to grow so fast that their timber will be tit for little else than fuel ; and the oak, elm. 



