HEDGEROW TREES AND HEDGES 239 



destroys it and makes blanks. The lime, too, 

 has the disadvantages of a spreading habit and 

 a thick shade. Ash does comparatively little 

 damage by overshadowing, but then it is as 

 greedy and objectionable as the elm. Old writers 

 on rural economy recommended this as the best 

 means of growing oak for the navy, and it cer- 

 tainly was one of the best ways of growing 

 crooked timber ; but the conditions as to timber 

 supplies and growing of corn are vastly different 

 now from what they were then, and the spreading 

 habit of oak renders it now unsuitable for growth 

 in the hedgerows. Yet it still is, next to elm, 

 the standard most often seen in country lanes 

 and at the edge of the fields. None of the 

 * aquatic trees ' are naturally suited for occupy- 

 ing such a position, and Heaven defend England 

 from rigid rows of tall Lombardy poplars, which, 

 like Noah's Ark trees, line the roadways of rural 

 France and Germany. Most of our broad-leaved 

 trees, and all of the best of them, are objec- 

 tionable except on the score of beauty, from 

 which point of view oak, elm, and ash, the 

 somewhat thinly-foliaged trees, reign supreme; 

 for those of denser foliage soon acquire a formal, 



