128 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



lings of silver fir absolutely require the shade and shelter of 

 parent trees or protective standards, as, except at first, side- 

 shade is on the whole more beneficial than direct over- 

 shadowing. During natural reproduction, seedlings often 

 spring up in blanks where parent standards are wanting, 

 and do well in the shade cast laterally by neighbouring 

 trees or woods, particularly where such protection is afforded 

 to them against the hot midday and early afternoon sun ; 

 they thrive well, too, under shrubs and upright-growing 

 weeds so long as there is no danger of their being choked 

 beneath rank grasses, against which, as against late frosts, 

 they require some protection. Protective reasons, therefore, 

 combined with considerations relative to stimulation of the 

 mature crop towards an accelerated increment in girth, 

 have led to natural reproduction under parent standard 

 trees being the usual method of regeneration adopted with 

 the silver fir. Its fair germinative power, and the high capacity 

 of the seedlings for bearing shade, adapt themselves well to 

 this form of reproduction, for even in mixed forests a com- 

 paratively few seed-shedding trees yield a fair proportion of 

 seedling growth capable of good development if favoured 

 during the subsequent operations of tending. 



Silver fir and beech correspond closely in regard to the 

 various stages of natural reproduction ; the extent to which 

 the mature crop should be removed and the ground should 

 remain overshadowed, before, during, and after the principal 

 seed-year, is in general about the same, with perhaps a slight 

 tendency to greater density of the silver fir standards, except 

 where the soil is somewhat wanting in moisture, and the 

 young crop consequently stands most in need of atmospheric 

 precipitations. These two species correspond also in the 

 length of time requisite for natural reproduction under the 

 mature parent crop, and though reproduction is usually 

 extended over a longer period in the case of the silver fir, this 



