MIXED WOODS. 41 



and usually produce timber of the largest size and best quality, 

 except where the soil and the situation distinctly indicate one 

 kind of tree as preferable to any other and most likely to thrive 

 in large masses. Nature's method in great virgin forests is 

 that the different kinds of trees usually occur either scattered 

 more or less sporadically, or else in large or small family groups, 

 except where some chance circumstance connected with the 

 production and distribution of seed, reproductive power, endur- 

 ance of shade, hardiness, or peculiarity in soil (especially as 

 regards moisture) and situation has enabled one kind to become 

 more or less dominant over large areas, to the suppression of 

 other kinds of trees less able to assert their position and main- 

 tain themselves under the given conditions. Where Beech is 

 dominant, nearly all other kinds of trees grow better when 

 mixed with it than they do in pure crops or mixed among each 

 other only. The British custom of mixing Larch and Scots 

 Pine along with Spruce and Douglas Fir in alternate rows is 

 not advisable ; for although the former usually shoot ahead at 

 first, they are generally caught up at about 15 to 20 years of 

 age, and then suppressed. Mixture of Larch and Spruce also 

 tends to increase the aphis (Chermes, see p. 226). 



The Different Forms of Woodland Crops. In the Statutes 

 relating to land valuation, rating, and succession duty, and in 

 the Hoard of Agriculture returns, woodlands are classed either 

 as "Coppices" or "Woods and Plantations" This is merely 

 a continuation of ancient law and custom, for both under the 

 old English forest law and under the common law applying to 

 lands not included within any forest boundary, the woodlands 

 were either coppices (sylva ccedua), whether simple or stored 

 with standard trees, or woods (saltus) ; and important legal 

 differences have always existed, and still exist, in England 

 between these two classes of woodland crops on settled 

 estates. Woods or timber come under the ancient English 

 common law, that "whatever is planted on the land, goes 



