BRITISH FOREST TREES 317 



assert itself spontaneously in damp, frosty localities in beech 

 and similar forests, usually in association with birch and 

 sallow. But although its demand for light is at first not so 

 great as that of the birch, it soon falls back in growth, unless 

 its crown is dominant above those of its neighbours. The 

 treatment accorded to the aspen in mixed woods is on the 

 whole similar to that already described in regard to the 

 birch, with this difference, that, in clearings or thinnings, 

 wherever either a birch or an aspen must be removed for 

 the tending of the other more valuable species, it is better 

 to cut out the aspen and to let the birch remain, as the more 

 remunerative individual. In timber crops of forty years of 

 age aspens are hardly ever to be seen, having already been 

 removed during the thinnings ; but where left to that age, the 

 stems are seldom sound. There is usually no necessity 

 for the sowing or the planting of aspen, as it generally 

 appears spontaneously, and often in quantities that make it 

 a perfect weed interfering with the growth and development 

 of the crop being reared on the ground. Where its artificial 

 production is desired, this can easily and best be attained 

 by the transplanting of self-sown seedlings or of rooted 

 stoles, but not by slips like the other poplars ; J the use of 

 seedlings has, however, decided advantages over that of 

 stoles, as being less liable to red-rot at an early period. 



The other poplars are as little suited as the aspen for 

 sylvicultural production on a large scale. But along streams 

 and brooks, or for the adornment of roads and pathways, 

 and wherever they can be grown on open places with light, 

 fresh soil, their rapid growth and large returns of useful 

 timber for minor purposes where it is not exposed to damp, 

 plead strongly for their cultivation. In the manufacture of 

 cellulose for the paper industry all the softwoods are more 

 highly valued than spruce or silver fir, but none more so 

 1 Ney, Dtr Wahibait, 1885, p. 426. 



