166 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



woods or plantations, and some idea may be obtained of the 

 plants that succeed each other, if a piece of ground hitherto 

 employed for corn or pasture be allowed to revert to forest. 



Trees are often thinned for pecuniary reasons, especially 

 in the case of those trees whose thinnings are easily marketable. 

 Early thinnings may be used for fuel ; the wood of some young 

 trees, as for instance ash and larch, sells well and is in demand. 

 In thinning it is important to keep the leaf canopy intact, and 

 this is best managed by planting the trees close together and 

 letting the lower branches drop off naturally. When trees are 

 felled their places should be taken by young trees, which may 

 be grown in a nursery garden on the estate. Too often woods 

 are allowed to get " gappy," as foresters say, owing to the want 

 of young trees to take their places. It is often less expensive to 

 grow these on a large estate than to buy them from the nursery 

 garden. On the Earl of Cawdor's estate in South Wales there is 

 a four-acre nursery garden from which some 90,000 forest trees 

 are issued annually, and therefore any area which has been felled 

 can be quickly replanted. 



VALUE OF DIFFERENT TREES AS TIMBER 



Before steel and teak were used for shipbuilding the oak 

 was very much in demand. Now its wood is used for the frame- 

 work of waggons, for wheels, pit props, paving blocks, cross beams 

 of telegraph posts, and for buildings and furniture. The Glou- 

 cestershire oak has a high reputation and is unequalled by any 

 continentally grown oak in strength and durability. 



The wood of the ash is adapted for purposes where flexibility 

 is of importance : " The English ash is about the only ash that 

 will bend " was the assertion made by one witness before the 

 Committee inquiring into British Forestry. It is therefore very 

 well suited for carriage poles, oars, axe and hammer shafts. The 

 ash is often grown in hedgerows and in coppices. The wood of 

 the young trees is especially elastic, and bears a greater strain 

 than any other timber of the same thickness. Unfortunately, it 

 exhausts the soil and starves other plants, therefore farmers do 

 not care to plant it much. The beech is not very valuable as 



