I'.KITISH FOREST TREES 105 



The oak is not naturally a common associate with the 

 spruce, from which it differs essentially in many sylvicultural 

 characteristics. The oak is generally found on the milder 

 filiations on plains and uplands with along warm period of 

 vegetation, the spruce at higher elevations and on shal- 

 lower soils. Still, in many parts of northern Germany such 

 mixed forests do exist, and are often spoken well of. Even 

 when oaks are given a few years' advantage at first, they are 

 soon overtaken and topped in growth by the spruce, unless 

 they are planted in clumps of considerable diameter. If 

 planted in rows or small groups, though they may reach the 

 pole-forest stage of growth evidently thriving and well above 

 the spruce, they seldom maintain these advantages till 

 maturity, but have usually to be cut out long before they 

 attain good marketable dimensions. 



Softwoods are often found associated with spruce, as 

 nurses where the reproduction of the latter is difficult, or as 

 protective standards in situations exposed to frost. But their 

 artificial production is seldom necessary, as they usually 

 occur self-sown, and if not, a more desirable substitute for 

 parent shelter can generally be found in the pine. More 

 frequently they in reality become weeds, whose coppice- 

 shoots occasion much trouble and annoyance. This is 

 particularly the case with coppice-growth of the birch, 

 whose long whip-like twigs damage the leading-shoots of the 

 young spruce growing around ; but where seedlings of birch 

 occur merely scattered here and there individually through- 

 out spruce woods in places where late and early frosts are to 

 be feared, their retention till they are caught up in growth 

 by the spruce, often yields good preliminary returns as well 

 as useful aid sylviculturally. 



Formation and Reproduction of Spruce Forests. Except at 

 high elevations, where the ordinary methods of reproduction 

 of spruce forests cannot be carried out, and where their 



