34 TEN YEAES IN SWEDEN. 



stones, where the roots can strike deeper. The fir also 

 requires a richer and better soil than the pine. Besides the 

 fir, the aspen, or trembling poplar, is scattered over all the 

 lower grounds and grows to a great size in many places. It 

 is one of the commonest trees in Sweden, and appears to 

 grow in any soil from the very fell sides downward. It is a 

 quick growing tree, and in thirty years has attained a large 

 size. It appears to be little valued, except that the wood 

 is much used in the manufacture of lucifer matches, and the 

 leaves and branches, like those of the birch, are gathered in 

 the autumn, and used as winter food for sheep. This is the 

 only species of poplar, indigenous to Sweden. 



The mountain ash also in many places attains a large 

 size, and its bright red berries partly serve to dispel the 

 gloom of the wintry landscape; and as here we have 

 no hawthorn, and the few hips of the wild dog rose are 

 plucked and sold for preserving, the berries of the mountain 

 ash and the juniper, which grow freely, at least in all 

 Wermland, form the principal subsistence of most of the 

 small birds that remain in Sweden during the winter. 

 But these can scarcely be called forest trees. There 

 is another tree, however the birch which appears to 

 be the peculiar companion of the fir, and is about the 

 only one that will thrive in its company, and imme- 

 diately the fir forests disappear the birch takes their 

 place. 



No tree is so valuable in the young fir plantings as the 

 birch, for it is of quick growth and serves to shield and 

 foster the more valuable trees that grow in the same forest. 

 At the age of ten years the birch is "hard enough for fire- 

 wood, and no forest tree answers so well for this purpose, 

 containing as it does so much heat. At thirty years it 

 can be cut down as underwood, and at fifty years it has 

 attained its full growth. As the birch trees are cut down 

 the more valuable trees are left. The birch thus pays for 

 planting and preserving the better trees which fatten 

 the land, while the birch, when planted alone, impover- 

 ishes it. 



