BRITISH FOREST TREES 101 



admixture takes place by planting in alternate rows, the silver 

 fir transplants should have the advantage of being older than 

 those of the spruce. Where such mixed forests are formed 

 or reproduced, it is advisable to allow the silver fir the 

 advantage of five to ten years of growth in order to enable it 

 to protect itself against the spruce without necessitating 

 considerable outlay for tending, 



Beech is not of so much importance as silver fir as a minor 

 species in spruce forests, for though its root-system is heart- 

 shaped like that of the former, its general habit of growth 

 and development as a forest tree is greatly different from 

 that of the latter; it requires to be grown in groups or 

 patches in order to maintain itself at all against the much 

 quicker growing spruce. Although it yields better fuel than 

 any other species of forest tree, the wood of the beech is in 

 poor demand as timber for technical purposes, so that in 

 Britain it will usually only be found in forests on account 

 of its soil-improving qualities. 



Important though the considerations regarding increased 

 annual production and better quality of timber be, yet the 

 chief advantages to be gained through the introduction of 

 silver fir and beech are beyond all question or doubt the 

 greater security afforded to the spruce in respect to all the 

 dangers and enemies to which this species is exposed. In 

 localities where spruce can thrive safely till maturity, meas- 

 ures for increasing the production are hardly of the first im- 

 portance, as the returns from pure forests of spruce are in 

 themselves so good that further outlay for the introduction 

 of a minor species might often seem uncalled for ; but where, 

 as in most localities under spruce, storm, snow and ice-ac- 

 cumulations, attacks of insects, fungous diseases especially 

 ( Trametcsradiciperda and Agaricus melUus), and other dangers 

 cannot be left out of reckoning, an intermixture of one or 

 other of these species and on suitable soils and situations 



