UKITIMI i OREST TREES \2\ 



white willow indeed not often so much, as it has a greater 

 tendency to dissipate its energy in branch development and 

 forked growth than the crack willow and the saugh, which 

 make the most successful efforts towards the formation of a 

 clean, straight bole. They are therefore classifiable only as 

 trees of the second magnitude. Taken as a class, the tree- 

 willows have a strong tendency to branch development and 

 ramification into twigs, although it is precisely the opposite 

 quality in the coppice-shoots which determines their value. 

 The branches are wide-spreading though not strong, and 

 bear an expansive but lightly-foliaged crown. 



In root-system they closely resemble the poplars, bcinj; 

 naturally somewhat shallow-rooted ; but in exposed situations 

 they establish a sufficiently strong hold on the soil to run 

 little risk of being thrown by the wind. 



Requirements as to Soil and Situation. The favourite 

 localities for the willow tribe are low shelving banks of 

 streams and rivers, riverine tracts subject to occasional inun- 

 dation with water holding rich mud and silt in solution, 

 sandy and loamy deposits left after floods have subsided, 

 and fresh or damp meadow land whose soil-moisture is not 

 stagnant. For the osiers, low-lying tracts and marshy land, 

 and sandy stretches with good subsoil, such as occur so fre 

 quently in Belgium and Holland, are the natural situations ; 

 but in Bavaria their artificial cultivation has proved emin- 

 ently successful on undulating land at considerable elevation, 

 and with no wealth of subsoil-moisture. In Mecklenburg- 

 Schwerin, too, osier-holts and withy beds have long been 

 formed successfully and remuneratively on bermes formed 

 by the slopes and flat stretches of railway land unoccupied 

 by the actual permanent way, a hitherto undeveloped 

 source of income that might surely be tapped in Britain also, 

 in place of having thousands of acres of good soil absolutely 

 unproductive and idle as at present. The tree willows are 



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