178 Practical Forestry 



well beneath the shade of deciduous trees. It is also of 

 slow, dense growth, and well adapted for planting in various 

 soils and situations, although preferring a light loam and a 

 shady position. Another recommendation is its immunity 

 from the attacks of game, hares and rabbits having such 

 an aversion to this plant that even during the most severe 

 weather I cannot remember having seen it badly injured. 

 Few plants suffer more from overcrowding than the box, 

 and for this reason it should be planted at wide distances 

 apart, the plants soon getting top-heavy and falling over of 

 their own accord. Where the plants are not of large size, and 

 immediate effect or covert is required, they may be planted 

 pretty close, and in a few years, when encroaching on each 

 other, every alternate one may be removed. It is well 

 adapted for transplanting, the almost solid mass of matted 

 roots holding the ball of earth firmly together, thus 

 rendering the plant one of our easiest as well as safest to 

 remove. 



The box would seem at one time to have been more abun- 

 dant in our own land than it now is ; thus, Boxley in Kent, 

 Boxwell in Gloucestershire, and Boxhill in Surrey, were 

 named from the quantity of this plant which was formerly 

 found in their neighbourhoods. 



Privet, as a covert plant, has its advantages and dis- 

 advantages. On the one hand it is cheap, easily grown, 

 and not at all fastidious about soil. When planted amongst 

 trees, however, it generally assumes a loose, straggling habit, 

 and as the shade increases it usually dies out altogether. 

 Where the plantations are well thinned and regularly kept 

 so, privet, if a little care and trouble be expended on its 

 cultivation, will succeed and form capital underwood. In 

 planting privet the greatest care is necessary to prevent its 

 being overdone. Close planting is always productive of the 

 most unsatisfactory results, not only as regards the health 

 of the plants, but management of the woods as well. Instead 

 of filling up the whole ground, as is not unfrequently done, 

 plant in small clumps, and these at wide distances apart, 

 as this will not only allow the privet to grow more healthy 

 and compact but also admit of space for pruning and layering 



