94 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part 111. 



S911. The Jittest slhiations for planting extensively are hilly, mountainous, and rocky 

 surfaces; where both climate and surface preclude the hope of ever introducing the 

 plough ; and where the shelter afforded by a breadth of wood will improve the adjoining 

 farm lands, and the appearance of the country. Extensive moors and gravelly or sandy 

 soils may often also be more profitably occupied by timber trees than by any other crop, 

 especially near a seaport, collieries, mines, or any other source of local demand. 



3912. On all hilly and irregular surfaces various situations will be indicated by the lines 

 of fences, roads, the situations of buildings, ponds, streams, &c., where a few trees, or a 

 strip, or mass, or row, may be put in with advantage. We would not, however, advise 

 the uniform mode of planting recommended by Pitt in his Survey of Staffordshire, and in 

 The Code of Agriculture ; that of always having a round clump in the point of intersection of 

 the fences of fields. This we conceive to be one of the most certain modes ever suggested 

 of deforming the surface of a country by planting ; the natural character of the surface 

 would be counteracted by it, and neither variety nor grandeur substituted ; but a mono- 

 tony of appearance almost as dull and appalling as a total want of wood. 



3913. Near all buildings a. few trees may in general be introduced ; carefully however 

 avoiding gardens and rick-yards, or shading low buildings. In general fewest trees 

 should be planted on the south-east side of cottages ; and most on their north-west side ; 

 farms and farm buildings in very exposed situations {Jig. 588.), and also lines of cottages, 

 may be surrounded or planted on the exposed side by considerable masses. 



588 



3914. Wherever shelter or shade is required, plantations are of the first consequence, 

 whether as masses, strips, rows, groups, or scattered trees ; all these modes may occa- 

 sionally be resorted to with advantage even in farm lands. 



3915. Wherever a soil cannot by any ordinary process be rendered fit for com or grass, and 

 will bear trees, it may be planted, as the only, or perhaps the best, mode of turning it to 

 profit. There are some tracts of thin stony or gravelly surfaces covered with moss, or 

 very scantily with heath, and a few coarse grasses, which will pay for no improvement 

 whatever, except sowing with the seeds of trees and bushes. These growing up will, 

 after a series of years, form a vegetable soil on the surface. The larch, Scotch pine, birch, 

 and a species of rough moorland willow (5'alix) are the only woody plants fit for such soils. 

 Those who have subjected to the plough old woodland, Sir Henry Steuart remarks, well 

 know how " inconceivably even the poorest soils are meliorated by the droppings of trees, 

 and particularly of the larch, for any considerable length of time, and the rich coat of 

 vegetable mould which is thereby accumulated on the original surface." It would ap- 

 pear indeed, that on certain surfaces the growth and decay of forests are the means 

 adopted by nature for preparing the soil for the culture of corn ; as on certain other 

 soils, a stock of nutritive matter is created by peat moss, or marsh, as on the barest 

 rocks, the rudiments of a soil are formed by the growth and decay of lichens. 



3916. Wherever trees will pay better than any other crop, they will of course be planted. 

 This does not occur often, but occasionally in the case of willows for baskets and hoops, 

 which are often the most profitable crop on moist deep rich lands ; and ash for hoops and 

 crate ware, on drier, but at the same time deep and good, soils. 



Sect. II. Trees suitable for different SoUs, Situations, and Climates. 



3917. Every species of tree will groiv in any soil, provided it be rendered suflSciently dry ; 

 but every tree, to bring its timber to the highest degree of perfection, requires to be 

 planted in a particular description of soil, situation, and climate. The effects of soils 

 on trees are very different, according to the kind of tree and the situation. A 

 rich soil and low situation will cause some trees, as the larch and common pine, 

 to grow so fast that their timber will be fit for little else than fuel ; and the oak, elm, 

 &c., planted in a very elevated situation, whatever be the nature of the soil, will never 

 attain a timber size. In general, as to soils, it may be observed that such as promote 

 rapid growth, render the timber produced less durable, and the contrary; that such soils 

 as are of the same quality for a considerable depth are best adapted, other circumstances 

 being alike, for ramose-rooted trees, as the oak, chestnut, elm, ash, and most hard- wooded 

 trees ; and that such soils as are thin, are only fit for spreading or horizontal-rooted trees, 

 as the pine and fir tribe. 



