160 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



spruce in the form of a prelimmary crop, has much to 

 recommend it in unfavourable situations, and probably 

 the more general adoption of this plan on doubtful soils 

 would be as cheap in the long run as that of risking 

 valuable or uncertain species, resulting in about three 

 failures to one success. 



In British forestry ' nurse ' trees are usually conifers 

 like larch, spruce, Scots pine, and others, which can be 

 cheaply and successfully planted. The question naturally 

 presents itself to the planter of mixed crops, or those 

 in which nurses have to be used at first. Are these 

 species the best that can be used for the purpose ? 

 Larch grows rapidly, and is valuable in most cases at the 

 first thinning ; spruce is cheap, easily transplanted, shades 

 the ground well after a. few years, and is worth something 

 as a pole ; Scots pine is cheap, easily transplanted, and 

 proves perfectly hardy against late frosts. All these are 

 valuable qualities in trees which have to be planted and 

 afterwards cut out before they attain a profitable size, 

 and a planter who uses Scots pine on dry, spruce on 

 wet soils, and larch more or less everywhere for the 

 purpose of nursing, is probably not very far wrong in 

 most cases. But for rapidly growing species, like Douglas 

 fir or Sitka spruce, these three species seldom start away 

 quickly enough to keep pace with their charges. In 

 some localities larch may not only grow as fast as 

 Douglas fir or Sitka, but even faster, and in parts of 

 Ireland, Douglas fir may occasionally be seen which has 

 been partly suppressed by larch during the first twenty 

 years. As a rule, however, Douglas fir rushes away after 

 the fourth year and requires a quicker growing nurse 

 than European larch. The same may be said about the 

 Sitka spruce, although this tree takes longer to start 

 rapidly away than Douglas fir. For most species, 

 especially broad-leaved trees, larch, spruce, or Scots pine 



