APPENDIX 



333 



In Nature there is no jumbling up of various incongruous 

 species over the whole forest, nor does one see starved and 

 unhealthy trees with withered tops and decayed at the roots, so 

 affected because they have been planted in a position unsuitable 

 to their kind. Some species will mix very well together ; an open- 

 headed, deciduous kind gaining by contact with a close-headed 

 kind, like pedunculate oak and beech, the latter improving the 

 soil by its copious leaf- fall. Also a species that loves the shade 

 of dark northern aspects, like silver fir, grows well with beech, 

 which kills down the sun-loving pines,* if wrongly mixed with 

 such. The only advantages of mixing different species in artificial 

 forests are that a judgment can be formed as to which tree grows 

 best, and the other kinds can be cut out. This is a clumsy and 

 unscientific method ; but in natural forest mixtures are usually by 

 groups, and it is not safe to plant trees in a jumble. If the 

 object is to cover the ground, mixtures may succeed, but if the 

 object is to grow the best timber — especially deals and pines — the 

 unmixed Highwood system is the one which, from its agreement 

 with Nature and its simplicity, is to be relied on as economical in 

 its working and, when once established, capable of yielding the 

 best results. 



The dropping of seed by parent trees on the ground is found in 

 natural forests to be usually effective in keeping up an unfailing 

 supply of seedling plants, which grow up in masses wherever the 

 winged seeds are carried by the wind. In India the process, 

 when fires are excluded, goes on most successfully. Some years 

 are specially good seed years, and some, when the rain comes at 

 the right moment, are good years for germinating. In time the 

 whole area gets sown, and the young trees grow up so rapidly that 

 the dift'erences of age do not count much after a few years, and 

 the forest is renewed. Replanting is lesorted to in Highwood 

 systems, where it may be found to pay better. Natural seeding is 

 practised commonly, as less costly. It is promoted in Highwood 

 culture by leaving a few parent trees standing when the final crop 

 is being felled. These cast their seeds on the freshly bared land, 

 and the sun soon causes germination and a rapid growth of the 

 new crop sufficiently evenly over the land. Then the parent trees 

 are felled. 



* Pinus silvestris. 



Artificial mix- 

 tures must 

 follow Nature. 



Economy of 

 unmixed High- 

 wood. 



Nature's 

 methods of re- 

 planting. 



