1 56 BRITISH FOREST TKKKS 



eastern limit is in Scotland latitude 56-57, in Scandinavia 

 6oi on the western and 57 on the eastern side, 54 J on 

 the east Prussian sea-coast, thence across eastern Poland, 

 Bessarabia, and the Crimea, towards the Caucasus. It is 

 essentially a tree belonging to the hilly and the lower moun- 

 tainous tracts of central and south Germany, and north- 

 western Austria, but it also forms pure forests on the plains 

 within the Baltic region, in upper Silesia, and in that portion 

 of Alsace drained by the Rhine. On the Harz mountains it 

 ascends to 2,150 feet elevation, in the Thiiringerwald and 

 Black Forest to 2,600 feet, on the Erzegebirge to 2, 700 feet, 

 to nearly 5,000 feet on the Bavarian Alps, and to 5,125 feet 

 in the Tyrol. Its chief sylvicultural characteristic is its 

 capability of forming dense pure forests, like the spruce and 

 in a less degree the silver fir, over extensive tracts of 

 country. 



In the earliest times it formed large pure forests on the 

 calcareous and chalky soils throughout central and southern 

 England, attaining its finest dimensions in Buckingham- 

 shire and Hants, but was not indigenous to Ireland or to 

 Scotland, where it was introduced largely early in the 

 eighteenth century. It is grown on the Continent in pure 

 forests over enormous areas on account of its fine quality as 

 fuel. In Britain there exists no such reason for its cultiva- 

 tion on a scale relatively so extensive, and as its timber is less 

 remunerative than that of other high forest growth, it must 

 chiefly claim attention on account of its soil-protecting and 

 soil-improving qualities, and as a ruling species in admixture 

 with which large timber trees of the more profitable broad- 

 leaved species can most remuneratively be grown without 

 danger of the soil deteriorating through any interruption of 

 the leaf-canopy, and the insolation consequent thereon. 



Tree-form and Root-system. When grown in pure forest, 

 the beech develops a straight, long, nearly cylindrical bole, 



