BRITISH FOREST TREES 305 



there is likely to be any market for bast for rope, cordage, or 

 mats, it certainly deserves some little attention as coppice 

 on railway cuttings, and embankments, and similar unutilised 

 ground, along with oak coppice and osier-beds, on places 

 where the soil is not quite good enough for these more 

 remunerative species to be grown pure. 



As might be expected from its strong recuperative and 

 reproductive power, lime can easily be transplanted at 

 almost any age from seedlings up to poles of thirty to forty 

 years of age, whilst it also stands trimming or lopping better 

 than any other species of forest tree. Sowing of the lime 

 is much less frequent than planting, not only on account of 

 the poor seeding qualities of both species, especially of 

 the large-leaved one, in Britain, but also of the slow 

 development of the seedlings at first, so that even for 

 nursery-beds slips, layers, or rooted stool-shoots are often 

 pricked out in preference to seedlings. Where seed is 

 obtainable, it can be preserved over winter in the same way 

 as ash-seed ; but it is better to collect it from the ground 

 in spring just before the time of sowing, as then it is less 

 likely to lie over till the following spring before germinating. 

 The seed is sown thickly in rills with a light covering of 

 soil of about J to J of an inch, as the percentage of non- 

 germinative seed is high ; this is more particularly the case 

 with the large-leaved species, which, on account of its 

 greater beauty of form and foliage, and its more rapid 

 growth and development, in general deserves the preference. 

 When the seedlings appear in spring, they are somewhat 

 sensitive to late frosts, and require some little protection until 

 the most dangerous period, the middle of May, has passed by. 



When the seedlings or layers are pricked out in the 

 nursery beds at one, or more frequently at two years of age, 

 they are usually put from sixteen to twenty-four inches 

 apart, and as limes require a good deal of trimming and 



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