CHAP, xii.] Protection of the Soil 259 



may be made to give fair returns in timber, whilst in reality 

 also making other payment for its tenure of the land by the 

 betterment of the soil and the improvement of its productive 

 capacity for the immediate future. Where land-improvements 

 of this nature can be made with mixed crops, these have such 

 estimable advantages of their own (see p. 118), that an admix- 

 ture of species should be effected wherever the circumstances 

 of soil and situation permit of it ; but where the soil is, for 

 the present, of such inferior quality that nothing but Scots 

 Pine seems likely to thrive, it will very often lead directly 

 and satisfactorily to the desired result, if the crops be tended 

 properly, and if no accidents occur from fire, snow, insects, or 

 epidemic outbreaks of fungoid diseases. A slight admixture 

 of Austrian and Corsican Pines should usually, however, be 

 tried experimentally. 



For the re-wooding or the recuperation of limy soils that 

 have become exhausted through the action of sun and wind 

 one of the most difficult of sylvicultural tasks there is no better 

 method than first of all putting them under crops of Black or 

 Austrian Pine (Pinus Austriaca\ Even this first step towards 

 the re-attainment of the high productive capacity characteristic 

 of good limy soils is often exceedingly hard to achieve. Excellent 

 results have at times been gained even on hot southern hill- 

 sides exposed to the full blaze of the sun during a continental 

 summer by sowing Lucerne and Black Pine seed together, and 

 allowing the crop of the former to decompose and humify on 

 the ground in order to assist the latter in maintaining itself for 

 the first year or two, until the young plants become established 

 in the soil. When once this is successfully effected, the rest 

 of the work is comparatively easy. From the time that such 

 crops have commenced to form canopy, the improvement 

 taking place in the soil not only becomes marked, but can 

 easily be maintained and enhanced by proper treatment of the 

 Pine, and by a rational choice and treatment of the species to 

 form the succeeding timber-crop. 



S 2 



