June 13, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



239 



trees of that age and younger are scattered in Beech-woods 

 of the same age, but, with very rare exceptions, they have 

 been overtopped by the Beech, the stems are lank and 

 weak, the foliage is thin ; in fact, they are living, but lin- 

 gering, and, in many instances, dying proofs that the Oak 

 has no chance against the Beech, if growing in an even- 

 aged wood, unless the Beech in the vicinity of the Oak is 

 cut back or lopped from the commencement. Attempts 

 have been made of late years, in some places, to save 

 such Oak-poles by girdling the Beeches in the vicinity. 

 Girdled Beech-trees are weakened by the operation ; their 

 foliage gets thin, and ultimately, in four or five years' time, 

 they die. This operation, however, has been futile ; the 

 remedy has come too late, and of the numerous Oak-poles 

 and under-sized Oak-trees which are scattered among 

 even-aged Beech woods, very few will attain a market- 

 able size. 



OAK-WOODS UNDERPLANTED WITH BEECH. 



Of the younger Oak-woods, those in the vicinity of the 

 r ' Weissenstein," in the Rothenbuch range, may be noted. 

 Here are 690 acres in one block, completely stocked with 

 Oak 50 to 100 years old, with a dense underwood of 

 Beech. At an elevation of 1,500 feet, a wood in which the 

 Oajc in 1 89 1 was ninety-eight years old, was found to con- 

 tain 260 stems per acre, the m'ean height of the wood being 

 seventy-five feet; trunk-diameters, breast-high, eight to ten 

 inches, and the Beech underwood twelve to twenty feet high. 

 In the Rhine valley, at a lower elevation (300 feet) and on 

 richer soil, the Oak shows a more rapid growth, attaining 

 at that age ninety feet, with a diameter of twelve to fifteen 

 inches. The underwood of Beech in the woods last men- 

 tioned is not natural. Originally they were all nearly pure 

 Oak-woods. When forty to fifty years old they were 

 thinned heavily and underplanted with Beech, and in 

 places Beech-nuts were sown to create an underwood of 

 that tree. The object of this operation is to shelter the 

 ground and to promote the development of the Oak. It 

 has already been explained that thickets of pure Oak are 

 dense enough, but at a later stage, when the trees have 

 attained the condition of poles, the wood becomes thin 

 and the leaf-canopy is not sufficiently dense to shade the 

 ground. The result is that the soil dries up and the stems 

 become branched and irregular. The foliage of the Oak 

 not being very dense, the leaf-fall does not enrich the soil 

 in the same way as is the case in Beech-forests. Hence 

 the great advantage of an admixture of Beech with the Oak. 

 By far the most favorable condition of affairs is found 

 where Oak and Beech grow up together from the com- 

 mencement, provided the Oak has a sufficient start, so as 

 not to be overtipped by the Beech, or is protected against 

 encroachment by lopping or cutting back the Beech. When 

 this is the case, the soil improves steadily, the Oaks clear 

 themselves at an early age of side-branches and form 

 straight, tall, well-shaped stems. Where this has not been 

 the case, in pure Oak-woods, it is necessary at a later age 

 to introduce the Beech and to make heavy thinnings in 

 order to enable it to grow. 



SHADE-BEARING AND LIGHT-DEMANDING SPECIES. 



Foresters make a distinction between trees which de- 

 mand much light, such as the Oak, the Larch and the 

 Scotch Pine, and trees which endure much shade, such as 

 the Beech, the Hornbeam, the Silver Fir, and, to a less 

 extent, the Spruce. The trees of the first-named class are 

 called light-demanding, those of the second, shade- 

 bearing. The difference between the two classes is very 

 great and shows itself in a variety of ways. Light- 

 demanding species are impatient of shelter while young, 

 their foliage is light, and, as explained before, woods con- 

 sisting of them get thin and open when old. 



On the other hand, shade-bearing trees, such as the 

 Beech and the Silver Fir, and to a less extent the Spruce, 

 are tender while young, being readily killed by sun and 

 frost. These species, however, have the great advantage 



that they will spring up under shade, and although with 

 an insufficient supply of light, they will not make much 

 progress ; still, they will maintain themselves, ready to 

 shoot up whenever light overhead is given by the removal 

 of shelter-trees. It follows, that wood consisting of spe- 

 cies which stand much shade can be regenerated much 

 more easily by self-sown seed than forests composed of 

 Oak, Scotch Pine and other species which demand much 

 light. Whether natural regeneration is attempted by the 

 selection system — that is, by taking out marketable trees 

 here and there — or by the group system, or by successive 

 cuttings spread over considerable areas, compartments or 

 sub-compartments, success is easy in the case of shade- 

 bearing trees, because a slight cutting is sufficient to in- 

 duce seedlings to come up ; and, secondly, because the 

 young growth will continue to live under a certain amount 

 of shade, until subsequent cuttings give more light. Again, 

 the foliage of shade-bearing trees is dense, improving 

 the soil by an abundant leaf-fall. Forests consisting 

 of these species always maintain a dense canopy of 

 leaves. 



On the other hand, trees which demand much light, such 

 as the Oak and Scotch Pine, spring up and thrive without 

 much shelter ; they will not come up where the shelter is 

 too heavy, their foliage is light, and pure woods of these 

 species get thin with age, because the weaker trees do not 

 get light enough, and perish. In such woods the soil gets 

 exposed to sun and wind, and deteriorates. Hence the 

 finest Oaks are found where they have grown up in com- 

 pany with the Beech, or with the Silver Fir, as is the case 

 in some instructive and valuable woods on the borders of 

 the Black Forest, near Rastatt, Baden-Baden and Stanfen. 

 Hence the Beech has justly been called the nurse of the 

 Oak, and the same may be said of the Silver Fir. In this 

 respect the Scotch Pine behaves like the Oak. It nowhere 

 attains such perfection as when it grows up in company 

 with the Beech, as we find it in the Steiger Wald, of Bavaria, 

 or when it is mixed with the Spruce and Silver Fir, as we 

 find it in the Black Forest. 



In India the Teak is a tree which demands much light. 

 This tree also thrives best, forming straight, clean, tall 

 stems, when associated with shady kinds, such as the 

 Bamboo. And when the forests of North America come 

 to be studied, from a forester's point of view, or rather 

 when they come to be managed in a regular and per- 

 manently profitable manner, the treatment of the different 

 species will have to be guided by analogous considera- 

 tions. 



In endeavoring to set before American readers the man- 

 agement of the mixed Oak and Beech forests of the Spes- 

 sart, we must be prepared for the objection, that these 

 matters may be interesting from a scientific point of view, 

 but that they cannot possibly be of any practical utility in 

 managing North American forests. The trees are different, 

 the climate is different. The American forester is skillful ; 

 he is full of resource, bold and energetic. He cannot pos- 

 sibly be expected to have the patience to find out whether 

 the trees of his forest are light-demanding or shade-bearing. 

 This would take much too long, and would interfere with 

 business. However, it may not be out of place to state 

 here that when the writer of these lines, in 1850, discov- 

 ered that Teak was a light-demanding tree, he laid the 

 foundation for the systematic management of the Teak 

 forests in Burma, which has proved successful on a large 

 scale, and will be lasting. There is no help for it ; if for- 

 est proprietors in the United States wish to leave to their 

 children forest estates, the value of which will grow stead- 

 ily, or if foresters, with a still higher aim, desire to confer 

 lasting benefits upon their country by inaugurating a good 

 system of forest-management, they must follow the exam- 

 ple of foresters of Germany and other countries of Europe, 

 and study the requirements of American forest-trees 

 in the matter of light and shade. This is at the root of 

 good forest-management in all countries. _ „ , 



Bonn, Germany. D. BraildlS. 



