276 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
of small larch poles is often extremely profitable, 
without any professional skill being necessary to 
grow them. Of somewhat larger growth, so as 
to give poles of three inches or more at the 
top-end, larch is also highly remunerative as 
pit-wood for props in the mines wherever col- 
lieries exist, Scots pine coming next to it in 
demand for this purpose. Indeed, in mining 
districts almost all sorts of small wood can find 
a fair market, provided they average about three 
to five inches in diameter. Apart, however, from 
exceptional cases, and from purely local considera- 
tions as to the market for disposal of the wood- 
land crops grown, Continental experience on a 
much larger scale than is possible in Britain has 
shown that mixed crops are preferable to pure 
crops of any one or other kind of trees; because 
in all cases of suitable mixtures the growth of the 
trees is better, and, as regards conifers especially, 
larch, pine, and fir are then less exposed to danger 
from snowbreak, windfall, insects, and fungous 
diseases. It would run into too much space to 
consider, in anything like detail, the conditions 
under which such mixed crops can best be grown; 
but it may at any rate be remarked that one of 
