THE PRODUCTION OF HIGH-CLASS OAK, ASH AND LARCH. 67 



sufficiently during the thinnings, as it requires to have its 

 head freely exposed to sun and air. 



Another method is to grow larch pure, to thin it out heavily 

 between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five years, and to under- 

 plant it with beech. Of the larch only the best stems are left 

 to grow into timber trees. 



Unfortunately very extensive areas of young pure larch 

 woods are found in Britain. Only the other day, the forester 

 of a large landed proprietor in the Midlands appealed to me 

 for advice, what to do with some 2,000 acres of young larch, 

 frightfully diseased. Cases like this are very sad, and I 

 believe the only chance of saving some of the trees as yet 

 unattacked is to cut out as quickly as possible all diseased 

 larches, and to under-plant with beech, thus preserving 

 healthy conditions for the further development of the remain- 

 ing trees. Instead of beech, such woods may be under- 

 planted with silver fir, whenever the latter is likely to give 

 better financial result. Douglas fir may also be tried, and 

 ought to do well, since the remaining larches will give it just 

 that shelter which the leading shoots of the Douglas fir so 

 much require. Even Weymouth pine may be used for this 

 purpose. The author has under-planted Scotch pine with 

 that tree, and the results are everything that can be desired. 

 If the Weymouth pine does well under Scotch pine, it will do 

 still better under larch, as that tree gives a lighter cover than 

 the Scotch pine. 



8. The Forest of Dean : An Object Lesson. 



In the previous section on " The Production of High-class 

 Oak, Ash, and Larch Timber," special attention has been 

 drawn to the importance of raising these light-demanding 

 and thin-crowned timber-trees in mixture with a full-crowned, 

 shade-bearing species, such as beech or silver fir. This 

 method of rearing our valuable trees has for its principal 

 object to secure a continued fertility of the soil. As some 



