280 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



admixture with Scots pine also in general gives better results 

 than can be shown by beech, despite the lighter fall of foliage. 

 Grown in equal-aged crops raised either from sowing or 

 planting in the open, it leads to the early formation of closed 

 canopy, and to vigorous growth in height of the pine ; this 

 soon outgrows the hornbeam, and the latter gradually 

 disappears unless it is considered advisable to favour its 

 retention by the formation of patches or groups at the time 

 of sowing or planting. For the underplanting of pine or 

 larch woods on fresh soils not quite moist enough for silver 

 fir or spruce, hornbeam will usually be found the broad- 

 leaved species most likely to yield fairly satisfactory results : 

 the operation should be undertaken about the thirtieth 

 to fortieth year, or earlier in the case of the larch, at the 

 time the natural tendency towards lateral expansion manifests 

 itself plainly by the self-thinning of the pole-forest. 



For a standard in copse, hornbeam is not naturally so well 

 suited as for coppice, as it casts too dense a shade over the 

 surrounding underwood. But where the standards consist of 

 oak, ash, and the like it does best service as coppice, and 

 although not so soil-improving as the beech, it has a decided 

 advantage over the latter in longer-sustained power of re- 

 production from the stool ; it thus permits of a greater choice 

 in the matter of fixing the periodic fall and the number of 

 annual hags, the rotation varying from twenty to forty years 

 according to the local demand for the material harvested 

 from the coppice on the clearance of each hag. 



Self-sown growth of seedlings is at times capricious, and 

 even troublesome in reproductive fellings in beech woods on 

 fresh soil ; but in copse, free shedding of seed often remains 

 practically abortive, as the young seedlings are easily sup- 

 pressed by grass on the moister localities, whilst the seed 

 either gets eaten by voles and mice or fails to germinate on 

 the drier soils. Artificial production and reproduction are 



