278 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



moist for the beech. It is less capable than most forest 

 trees of attaining large proportions in our climate, and 

 though its tough wood is excellently adapted to various 

 small timber requirements, the market for such minor 

 assortments is easily satisfied without the cultivation of 

 hornbeam on any extensive scale beyond its natural position 

 in coppice. There owing to its strong, long-sustained power 

 of shooting from the stool, and of throwing out stoles also 

 with deep felling, and its capacity for enduring shade, in 

 which it approaches but does not quite equal the beech, it 

 often forms a very considerable portion of the crop. 



Wherever it is desired to grow the hornbeam in high 

 forest, this can only be successful either on fresh and humose 

 or strong mineral soils ; it is best attained by admixing the 

 hornbeam with the beech, as except in close canopy it fails to 

 develop a long, straight, round stem. Grown along with oak, 

 ash, maples, and elms on damp or moist patches with good 

 strong soil, where there is always a certain amount of danger 

 from early and late frosts, it is often in some respects a 

 better ruling species throughout such groups than the beech ; 

 it is not so energetic in growth, and is therefore less likely 

 to overtake and suppress, or at any rate inconvenience in 

 growth, these nobler and more valuable species. As a 

 subordinate scattered singly or in small knots throughout 

 beech woods, even with some advantage in growth it is apt 

 to be caught up about the twentieth to the twenty-fifth year, 

 and in any case has to be removed usually about 

 the sixtieth to seventieth year during the periodical 

 thinnings, long before the ruling species has arrived at 

 maturity. But near the edges of the forest, and wherever the 

 shade overhead is not too dense, it generally endeavours to 

 assert itself again as coppice ; as already remarked, the over- 

 shadowing must be strong indeed to suppress it altogether. 



Where soil and situation are favourable to the hornbeam, 



