198 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



matter we have not much to learn beyond what 

 our ancestors knew. * In moist and boggy places/ 

 said shrewd John Evelyn, ' they will flourish 

 wonderfully, so the ground be not spewing ; but 

 especially near the Margins and banks of Rivers' 

 And in adding precepts on their cultivation he 

 advised how * trunchions of seven, or eight feet long, 

 thrust two foot into the earth, when once rooted, 

 may be cut at six inches above ground ; and thus 

 placed at a yard distant they will immediately fur- 

 nish a kind of Copse. But in case you plant them 

 of rooted-trees, or smaller sets, fix them not too 

 deep ; for though we bury the trunchions thus 

 profound, yet is the root which they strike com- 

 monly but shallow.' 



It is strange how the necessity for close plant- 

 ing, above clearly advocated, even for light- 

 demanding trees, such as the 'poplar and abele 

 (which are all of them hospitable trees, for 

 anything thrives under their shades)* should have 

 been so completely lost sight of in British 

 Forestry since the time of the Restoration. Prob- 

 ably very few of the plantations of any sort 

 made during the last century have shown so many 

 as the 4840 plants per acre recommended even 



