NOTIONS ON ARTIFICIAL RESTOCKING. 201 



be extremely useful as nurses. Where the soil is 

 sufficiently wet, it is often very advantageous to 

 make at first a plantation of alder. Private pro- 

 prietors would thus find a means of rapidly recover- 

 ing their outlay, as the alder grows fast and shoots 

 up freely from the stool. But these trees, which 

 may not improperly be styled transitory species, 

 ought, as far as possible, to be themselves indigenous 

 in the district. In the absence of indigenous species 

 possessing some value, it it advisable to employ the 

 Scotch or the Austrian pine. The trees appear to 

 suffer less than any other from removal to different 

 conditions of vegetation. Of course brushwood, if 

 any comes up, should not be destroyed. In a word, 

 here as elsewhere, we must utilise the forces of nature. 



CHOICE OF METHOD. Which is preferable, to 

 plant or to sow ? This question has been very 

 hotly discussed, and yet is simple enough. It has 

 been said by some that nature only sows, and that 

 since we cannot do better than imitate her, we too 

 must sow. But they forgot that natural forces have 

 time on their side, and that they always operate 

 slowly and progressively. When a piece of land is 

 left to itself, it covers itself with such plants as the 

 soil can support. Grasses and weeds appear first ; 

 then brushwood, followed by shrubs ; then hardy 

 trees, which demand little from the soil, and suffer 

 nothing from complete exposure ; and last of all, 

 when the soil has become richer and moister, the 

 more valuable trees come up under the shelter of the 

 first, and maintain themselves by abundant seeding. 



It is not possible for the forester to operate thus. 



