Book 11. INFLUENCE OF CULTURE ON TREES. 645 



3964. Cobbett, who, though by no means a scientific cultivator, has in general very sound practical views 

 is decidedly in favour of planting in masses ; and would have all the trees not only of one and the same 

 sort, but of the same size and height {Woodlands, \ 85.) 



3965. By indiscriminately 7)iixin<r different kinds of hard wood plants in a plantation, there is hardly a 

 doubt that the ground will be fully cropped with one kind or other ; yet it very often happens, in cases 

 when the soil is evidently well adapted to the most valuable sorts, as the oak perhaps, that there is hardly 

 one oak in the ground for a hundred that ought to have been planted. We have known this imperfection 

 in several instances severely felt. It not unfrequently happens, too, that even what oaks or other hard- 

 wood trees are to be met with, are overtopped by less valuable kinds, or perhaps such, all things considered, 

 as hardly deserve a place. Such evils may be prevented by planting with attention to the soil, and iij 

 distinct masses. In these masses are insured a full crop, by being properly nursed for a time with kinds 

 more hardy, or which afford more shelter than such hard-wood plants. There is no rule by which to fix 

 the size or extent of any of these masses. Indeed, the more various they are made in size, the better will 

 they, when grown up, please the eye of a person of taste. They may be extended from one acre to fifty 

 or a hundred acres, according to the circumstances of soil and situation : their shapes will accordingly be 

 as various as their dimensions. In the same manner ought all the resinous kinds to be planted, which 

 are intended for timber trees ; nor should these be intermixed with any other sort, but be in distinct 

 masses by themselves. The massing of larch, the pine, and the fir of all sorts, is the least laborious and 

 surest means of growing good, straight, and clean timber. It is by planting or rather by sowing them in 

 masses, by placing them thick, by a timely pruning and gradual thinning, that we can with certainty 

 attain this object. {Plant. Kal. 162 and 166.) Our opinion is in perfect consonance with that of Sang, 

 and for the same reasons ; and we may add, as an additional one, that in the most vigorous natural forests 

 one species of tree will generally be found occupying almost exclusively one soil and situation, while, in 

 forests less vigorous, on inferior and watery soils, mixtures of sorts are more prevalent. This may be 

 observed by comparing New Forest with the natural woods round Lochlomond, and it is very strikingly 

 exemplified in the great forests erf Poland and Russia. 



3966. With respect to the appearance of variety, supposed to be produced by mixing a 

 number of species of trees together in the same plantation, we deny that variety is pro- 

 duced. Wherever there is variety, there must be some marked feature in one place, 

 to distinguish it from another ; but in a mixed plantation the appearance is every where 

 the same ; and ten square yards at any one part of it will give nearly the same number 

 and kinds of trees as ten square yards at any other part. " There is more variety,'' 

 Repton observes, " in passing from a grove of oaks to a grove of firs, tlian in passing 

 through a wood composed of a hundred different species, as they are usually mixed 

 together. By this indiscriminate mixture of every kind of tree in planting, all variety 

 is destroyed by the excess of variety, whether it is adopted in belts, clumps, or more 

 extensive masses. For example, if ten clumps be composed of ten different sorts of 

 trees in each, they become so many things exactly similar ; but if each clump consists 

 of the same sort of tree, they become ten different things, of which one may hereafter 

 furnish a group of oaks, another of elms, another of chestnuts or of thorns, &c. In like 

 manner, in the modem belt, the recurrence and monotony of the same mixture of trees 

 of all the different kinds, through a long drive, make it the more tedious, in proportion 

 as it is long. In part of the drive at Woburn, evergreens alone prevail, which is a cir- 

 cumstance of grandeur, of varietj^, of novelty, and, I may add, of winter comfort, that I 

 never saw adopted in any other place, on so magnificent a scale. The contrast of "passing 

 from a wood of deciduous trees to a wood of evergreens must be felt by the most heed- 

 less observer ; and the same sort of pleasure, though in a Aveaker degree, would be felt, in 

 the course of a drive, if the trees of different kinds were collected in small groups or 

 masses by themselves, instead of being blended indiscriminately." (^Enquiry into Changes 

 of Taste, ^c p. 23.) 



3967. Sir William Chambers and Price agree in recommending the imitation of natural forests in the 

 arrangement of the species. In these. Nature disseminates her plants by scattering their seeds, and the 

 offspring rise round the parent in masses or breadths, depending on a variety of circumstances, but chiefly 

 on the facility which these seeds afford for being carried to a distance by the wind, the rain, and by birds 

 or other animals. At last that species which had enjoyed a maximum of natural advantages is found to 

 prevail as far as this maximum extended, stretching along in masses and irregular portions of surface, 

 till, circumstances changing in favour of some other species, that takes the precedence in its turn. In 

 this way it will be generally found, that the number of species, and the extent and style of the masses in 

 which they prevail, bear a strict analogy to the changes of soil and surface; and this holds good, not only 

 with respect to trees and shrubs, but to plants, grasses, and even mosses. 



Sect. V. Culture of Plantations. 



3968. A tree, u-hen once planted, most men consider to be done tvith ; though, as every 

 one knows, the progress and products of trees, like those of other plants, may be greatly 

 increased or modified by cultivating the soil, by pruning, and by thinning. Before pro- 

 ceeding to these subjects, we shall submit some remarks on the influence of culture on 

 the progress of the growth of trees, and on the strength and durability of timber. 



SuBSECT. 1 . General Influence of Culture on Trees. 



3969. The effect of culture on herbaceous vegetables is so great, as always to cliange 

 their appearance, and often, in a considerable degree, to alter their nature. The common 

 culinary vegetables, and cultivated grasses, assume so diflJerent an appearance in our 

 fields and gardens, from what they do in a state of wild nature, that even a botanist 

 might easily be deceived in regard to the species. The same general laws operate upon 

 the whole kingdom of vegetables ; and thence it is plain, that the eflPects of cidture on 

 trees, though diflferent in degree, must be analogous in their nature. ( Treatise on Country 



T t 3 



