THE SOFTWOODS 175 
the most faithful lover of wattery and boggy 
places, and those most despis’d weeping parts, 
or water-falls of Forests. Moisture is indeed 
a necessity for it, as it can make no great fight 
against drought; and it thrives on land that is 
even too wet for willows and poplars. But, 
whenever the land becomes too dry for good 
growth of alder, a more profitable kind of crop 
can easily be raised. On the waste, swampy 
lands where alder is now mostly to be found, 
self-produced and often little cared for, want 
of management allows it to spread greatly and 
run much into branches; whereas, if it were 
kept in something like close canopy, it could 
easily be made to attain a height of about 
fifty to sixty feet, with a proportionate girth 
on favourable soil. 
The wood and the bark of the alder are in less 
repute to-day than they once were. Like elm 
timber it is durable for use underground, or, if 
kept dry, in places where there is no frequent 
alternation from damp to dry atmosphere, the 
conditions favouring attacks of destructive fungi. 
All the softwoods, in fact, are much more dur- 
able when thus preserved against damp, and this 
