230 BETULA. 



have attained the size required, its growth being rapid, 

 even upon inferior soils, especially where plants, reared 

 from seed of the pendulous kind have been selected. Thus, 

 for staves for herring and other fish barrels, the demand 

 for which is now so extensive throughout Scotland and 

 the north of England, the Birch attains a sufficient size 

 in fifteen, or at most in twenty years, whereas the elm, 

 the ash, and others, require several additional years to 

 reach an equal diameter. 



Upon a poor weak surface soil, but where the substratum 

 is of a stiff clayey nature, and fit for the oak, we have 

 found a mixture of larch, birch, and oak, the last intended 

 to remain as the ultimate crop, to be the best and most 

 profitable selection. In such a combination, the larch, 

 which are planted in much greater numbers than either 

 the birch or the oak, afford the first two or three thinnings, 

 or until the birch have attained a profitable size, which 

 they will do in eighteen or twenty years ; the thinnings 

 after this period may be either of the two kinds conjointly, 

 or entirely of the birch, should the remaining larch promise 

 to attain a large scantling ; but should the latter show any 

 inclination to taint or rot at heart, which it sometimes 

 does at the age of fifteen or twenty years upon land of 

 this quality, in that case it should form the whole of 

 the thinnings until entirely exhausted, leaving the birch 

 to be thinned out afterwards as the oaks require additional 

 room. In plantations where the sweet chesnut is intended 

 to form the principal crop, we believe that the larch and 

 birch would prove the most eligible nurses. Upon poor 

 light moist soils, mixed with the larch and the Scotch 

 fir, it also proves the most profitable tree we can grow, 

 and from its hardy nature, and rapid growth upon very 



