PLANTATION. 



PLANTATION. 



mountain ash and Scotch firs, it is not because ' soil contained 75-25 per cent, of silica, the tim- 

 the composition of the soil is too poor to sus- [ ber growing on it contained 13-49 per cent.; 



tain a better description of timber tree, but that 

 the soil is usually saturated with water, too 

 much impregnated with the salts of iron for 

 any plants to be successfully planted till that 

 corrosive moisture is removed. 



Then, again, as regards the temperature best 

 adapted to the tree, much too little attention is 

 commonly paid. The fir tribe are found to de- 

 light in dry, cool elevations, whilst attempts to 

 make the larch grow in warm, rich bottoms, 

 generally fail. 



These facts should be more carefully at- 

 tended to by the planter : he should consider 

 the inequalities of his land and the habits of his 

 trees, and distribute them accordingly. Leaving 

 the natives of a temperate climate to the south- 

 ern and western slopes, he should devote to 

 the northern declinations the natives of a colder 

 clime; to them consign the larch and the 

 Scotch fir, the ash and the birch. 



This last-mentioned tree will, in fact, grow 

 at a greater elevation above the sea, and in a 

 more northern latitude, than any other. As we 

 approach the Arctic regions, it is the last tree 

 that remains to us. Long after all others have 

 departed it still flourishes: in Greenland there 

 is no other tree. 



Then, again, as in all other questions where 

 plants of any kind are to be made to vegetate, 

 the chemical composition of the soil is a tole- 

 rably certain criterion, when compared with 

 that of the wood of trees, to guide us in our 

 selection of the species to which that land is 

 the best adapted: the earths found in them by 

 the chemist are sure to indicate the soils on 

 which they will flourish. Thus, the ashes of 

 the perfect wood of the oak contain more than 

 38 per cent, of soluble salts, and only 2 per 

 cent, of silica (flint); that of the fir (Abies'), 

 grown on granite, only 16 per cent, of soluble 

 salts, and 19 per cent, of silica. Now the 

 fir flourishes very well on the poorest silicious 

 sands, but the oak will not grow on such 

 soils without a dressing of other earths. Car- 

 bonate of lime (chalk), when in excess in 

 soils, is less prejudicial to the growth of trees 

 than an excess of any other earth. Now the 

 carbonate of lime is precisely that earth which 

 is most commonly found in timber trees, and 

 in the largest proportions. The ashes of the 

 wood of the oak, for instance, contain about 

 22 per cent, of the earthy carbonates, the pop- 

 lar 29, the hazel 22, the hornbeam 26 per cent. ; 

 and that of the beech a still larger proportion. 

 And so almost universally does carbonate of 

 lime and silica exist in wood, that M. Einhof, 

 an able Prussian chemist, came to the conclu- 

 sion that the plant had the power of forming 

 these earths when growing on soils that did not 



but when the soil was entirely free from the 

 earth, it was equally absent from the wood. 



The observations of the planter confirm en- 

 tirely those of the chemist. Thus, on the poor, 

 hungry, heath lands, such as those of Norfolk, 

 Surrey, and the north, which contain hardly a 

 trace of carbonate of lime, they find that by 

 dressing land intended for planting with chalk 

 or marl, the growth of the trees is very mate- 

 rially increased; and more recently, as in the 

 forest of Darnaway, in Scotland, the planters 

 have found the greatest aorkntage from placing 

 only a handful of lime (about four bushels per 

 acre is sufficient) in the soil under the plants : 

 by this means the young trees, they say, are 

 forced forward, that is, they are supplied with 

 the carbonate of lime at the very period of their 

 growth when their roots, from want of extent 

 and vigour, are least able to absorb from the 

 soil the portion of this earth so essential for 

 their healthy growth. And it is precisely such 

 heath soils as those to which I have alluded as 

 being so materially benefited by the applica- 

 tion of lime, chalk, or marl (which also con- 

 tains chalk), that are found when examined, in 

 their natural state, to be nearly destitute of 

 carbonate of lime. 



It is for the same reasons that, in the early 

 state of their growth, timber plantations are 

 benefited so materially by being manured with 

 organic matters, a fact well known to those 

 who plant for merely ornamental purposes; 

 and it is because all timber trees contain phos- 

 phate of lime in very considerable proportions, 

 that crushed bones are found to be so excellent 

 a fertilizer for them ; and hence one reason 

 why it has been long a well-known fact, that 

 by burying dead animals under trees nearly 

 exhausted for want of nourishment, those trees 

 will almost invariably be considerably revived, 

 and send out their shoots with unusual vigour; 

 and how essential the presence of phosphate 

 of lime is to their growth, may be judged of 

 from the fact, that this salt constitutes 4-5 per 

 cent, of the ashes of the oak, 35 in those of the 

 hazel, 16-75 of the poplar, 23 in the hornbeam, 

 12 per cent, in those of the fir. 



These chemical examinations naturally sup- 

 port the conclusions to which I have long come 

 in my own experiments, that in all plantations 

 of timber trees, both on the score of profit and 

 of ornament, it is in almost all situations de- 

 sirable to assist the growth of the young trees by 

 a small addition of manure. On a large scale, 

 this must be chiefly confined to the use of the 

 earths, either lime, chalk, or marl, according 

 to their respective local value ; and for this 

 purpose a smaller proportion per acre of any 

 kind of manure is of much greater value than 



contain them: they certainly, however, are I is commonly supposed. In Scotland they have 

 found to absorb the largest proportion of car- : found about 4 bushels of lime an abundant ad- 



bonate of lime and silica on soils in which 

 those earths abound. Thus M. Saussure found 

 in the ashes of the fir, growing on a soil which 

 contained 1-74 per cent, of carbonate of lime, 

 46-34 per cent, of this earth ; but in the ashes 



dition, since they merely mix a handful of this 

 earth in the soil under each plant ; and in the 

 fine woods produced by Mr. Withers, of Holt, 

 by spreading a poor marl over his hungry, 

 black, heath soil, and then ploughing them in 



of the same wood, produced from a soil con- ' very deeply, he merely added about 20 cubic 

 taining 93 per cent, of carbonate of lime, he : yards per acre. 



found 63 per cent, of that earth. And when the i In preparing the land for plantations, the 

 89i 



