1 66 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



leaves, but as a tree of the forest it is not so pro- 

 fitable in the highwoods as many of our indige- 

 nous trees. Here it makes considerable demands 

 on warmth of situation, or sheltered localities, 

 and though very moderate in its requirements 

 as to mineral strength of the soil, it needs a deep 

 sandy or sandy loam to make really good growth. 

 Cold land and stiff clays are not favourable to its 

 development ; even stony or gravelly land, warm 

 and well sheltered, is better than these. It ex- 

 hibits antipathy to limy land, and even a small 

 percentage of carbonate of lime in the soil at once 

 affects its development. Another drawback to its 

 cultivation in highwoods is that it often at about 

 the age of fifty to seventy years becomes unsound 

 with ring-shakes, which spoil it for beams and scant- 

 ling. Its wood is useful for such purposes as gate- 

 posts, fencing, hop-poles, cask-hoops, and the like, 

 all of which are procurable from coppice-growth. 

 Rarely maturing its seed in Britain, like the other 

 non-indigenous trees, English elm, lime, poplar, 

 and some willows, it has a very strong reproduc- 

 tive capacity both in the form of stool-shoots and 

 root-suckers. It shoots freely from the stool, 

 and the stubbs retain their coppicing power for a 



