164 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



developed and perfected during the last half century, the 

 use of beech as fuel has to a great extent been supplanted 

 by the use of coal, coke, and peat, so that there is no longer 

 the same necessity for the production of large pure forests 

 of beech in the interest of the fuel-consuming population. 

 The preparation of bricquets of coal-dust, and the com- 

 pression of peat, have also thrown vast quantities of heat- 

 producing material on the market, which had at most only 

 a local consumption formerly. 



Thus even in continental countries circumstances are 

 gradually bringing the proprietors of forests to look at the 

 matter within certain limits only, in the case of state 

 forests from the actuarial point of view, which must ever 

 be the principal and only sound one in Britain. With its 

 shade-bearing and soil-protecting qualities, beech undoubt- 

 edly stands pre-eminent and unrivalled as the ruling species in 

 subordinate admixture with which can best be grown the more 

 light-loving species, such as oak, ash, elm, maple and syca- 

 more, which are on average classes of soil unable to maintain 

 undiminished in pure forest, or in mixed forests consisting of 

 themselves only without a shade-bearing species, the repro- 

 ductive capacity of the soil. In such mixed forests the sub- 

 ordinate species develop into larger, better grown, and more 

 valuable boles than when reared in forests consisting entirely 

 of light-loving species ; in mild crops even the beech 

 itself is benefited so much as in general to yield timber 

 well capable of being utilised for technical purposes in 

 place of merely becoming fuel. 



Where pure forests of beech form the crop for the pro- 

 duction of fuel only, the fall usually takes place during the 

 eightieth to hundredth year, natural regeneration under 

 parent standards being effected during that period ; but where 

 there is any fair market for beech as timber, reproduction is 

 begun about the ninetieth year, and continued till about the 



