96 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



require trees with a mean quarter girth of more than 

 8 to 10 inches, and trees of this size can easily be grown 

 in forty to fifty years on suitable soils. 



As suitable trees for mixing with the larch, when 

 regarded as a main crop tree, beech and Spanish chestnut 

 amongst hardwoods, and spruce amongst the conifers, may 

 be mentioned. Beech should only be used in the case of 

 long rotations, fifty years and over, as it is of little value 

 under that age. Being a slow grower for the first few 

 years, the larch gets well away at first, and, by the time 

 the beech catches up with it, it is too late to do it much 

 harm. Spanish chestnut may be used in rotations from 

 thirty to fifty years, and will furnish useful trees for 

 fencing purposes in that time. Spruce should only be 

 used on damp ground, and in districts where pit-wood 

 pays for growing. In such cases very heavy crops of 

 poles may be grown with this mixture, as after a few 

 years the spruce constitutes a second storey, and both 

 species can grow practically unaffected by each other. In 

 windy districts a sprinkling of spruce amongst the larch 

 is also useful in sheltering the latter and preventing damage 

 from storms, as spruce branches develop easily under the 

 thin shade of larch ; but where such shelter is needed on 

 dry soil it is probably better to grow the spruce in the 

 form of belts along the margins of rides, and greater 

 resistance to the wind will be given them if a double row 

 of them be planted a few feet apart, so that the windward 

 side of each tree is the one best furnished with branches. 



Although a great deal has been heard from time to time 

 of substitutes for larch, a satisfactory substitute has yet to be 

 found. There is no tree, either hardwood or conifer, which 

 can show the same quality of timber and be put to the 

 same uses at the age of ten to twenty years as larch, and 

 this practically constitutes its chief value. 



The Japanese larch has been boomed very extensively of 

 late years, and provided it continues to grow at the same 

 rate as that at which it starts, it may prove a useful tree 

 where the European species is a failure. But it has not 

 been introduced into this country long enough to justify an 

 optimistic statement being made about it at present. It 



