46 ENGLISH WOODLANDS 



A planter, if the circumstances of a plantation 

 give him no chance of pecuniary profit, may as 

 well plant trees which will grow vigorously for 

 a hundred and eighty years as trees which 

 grow for sixty or seventy years. 



In spite of the many failures of mixed woods 

 in the last century, they are a very advantageous 

 method of planting, if care in management is 

 exercised — and there is no reason why there 

 should not be careful management. Five or 

 5 J feet apart is close enough for the young 

 trees to be planted. A method once generally 

 practised was to plant first the oak at the 

 distances at which it was intended that they 

 should ultimately stand, and to fill up with 

 larch to the distance of 3 or 4 feet apart. 

 The result is, that if any of the oak die, the 

 remaining oak trees on each side of the dead 

 one stand apart at excessive distances. A 

 better method is to increase the number of oak, 

 so as to have a sufficient number in reserve to 

 take the place of those which die, are unpromising, 

 or are smothered. 



In this method the oak are planted in the 

 rows with the larch ; for example, every alternate 

 row is pure larch, and in the intermediate row 

 there is an oak and then a larch, or an oak and 



