CHAPTER XII 

 TREES BEST ADAPTED FOR VARIOUS SOILS 



THERE is, perhaps, no soil so bad and barren that it may 

 not be rendered either profitable or ornamental by judicious 

 planting ; but, as might be expected, there is often a great 

 want of knowledge as to the proper kind of trees to be chosen 

 to suit a particular soil. In looking over a large extent of 

 woodland one will often be struck with the great dis- 

 proportion in size of the individual trees of a species ; but 

 it will generally be noticed that where the largest and 

 healthiest occur the tree is usually growing upon its own soil, 

 and is found to be nourishing at the expense of all around 

 it. Thus the finest oaks will be found where the soil is 

 deep and loamy, resting on clay ; beech, and the Austrian 

 pine (Pinus austriaca) upon a calcareous gravel, resting on 

 a bed of chalk ; ash and elm on a dampish, loamy gravel ; 

 birch in a light, black loam, with a gravelly substratum ; 

 Spanish chestnut, in a good loamy or gravelly soil, not too 

 damp ; the Scotch and Corsican pines (P. sylvestris and P. 

 laricio) at fairly high altitudes, and in gravelly, well-drained 

 soils ; and the Cluster and Aleppo pines (P. Pinaster and P. 

 halepensis), in almost pure sand on the sea-coast. Some 

 trees grow rapidly for a few years in almost any soil, 

 but where the soil is unsuitable they generally show signs of 

 distress after a time, make little or no progress, and ulti- 

 mately become stunted and ill-grown. Should the soil 

 be very unfavourable, they die outright. Instances of this 

 are, unfortunately, far too common wherever one travels 

 over the country, owing to trees of a kind that are utterly 

 unfitted for the particular class of soil being planted in a, 



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