166 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



Beech forests require a considerable amount of tending. 

 All coppice-shoots of beech and hornbeam should be removed 

 during the weedings and clearings of young seedling growth, 

 and as a rule all softwoods also, whilst in thinnings the clear- 

 ance of the latter along with all suppressed poles of the ruling 

 species should certainly take place. On drier and poorer 

 patches of soil, where light and air are most requisite, and the 

 struggle for individual existence is most equally balanced, the 

 axe has usually to give considerable assistance to nature in the 

 work of hastening on the selection of the predominating and 

 dominating poles. But on the whole the golden rule in the 

 thinning out of this species is that it should be carried outearfy, 

 often, and moderately, anticipating to a slight extent, in crops 

 of advanced age, the results slowly being attained by nature. 



In contradistinction to the treatment usually accorded to 

 the oak, natural reproduction under parent standards finds 

 by far the most favour in regard to beech, although (as with 

 the silver fir, the only other forest tree with which a similar 

 method is largely in vogue) artificial aid has generally to be 

 invoked to a greater or less extent in filling up blanks where 

 reproduction is unsatisfactory. 



Where crops of beech are to be formed for the first time 

 in the open, planting is the usual mode of formation, as 

 seedling growth demands shade and shelter during the first 

 two or three years of its existence. But where it is to be in- 

 troduced into other forests either as underwood, or with a 

 view to forming part of the future crop of high-forest, the 

 choice still remains between sowing and planting, although 

 in general preference is given to the latter method as attain- 

 ing satisfactory results in the least time, and at a cost not 

 necessarily greater than sowings often amount to before 

 the operations can really be considered completed. 



Pure Forests of Beech. Although, to be consistent with 

 the principle that actuarial considerations alone should form 



