66 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



CHAPTER V. 

 WHERE TO PLANT TIMBER-TREES. 



Elevation and Aspect. — Rainfall. — Value of the Land. — Soil. — Accessibility. 



IN planting for timber the rule, generally speaking, should 

 be to plant where no other crop is likely to be as valuable 

 This is practically the rule in Germany, the difference in that 

 respect between that country and our own being marked. In 

 the cultivated regions of Germany lying near the mountain 

 ranges, where the climatic conditions are similar to our own, 

 the best land is devoted to agricultural crops, no room being 

 found even for fences, shelter-belts, or hedge-row trees, and the 

 farmer pushes his corn and other crops up the mountain side 

 as far as he can do with advantage, and no further. Where 

 his crops end the forest begins, the two looking at a distance 

 as if dove-tailed into each other. There is no ornamental 

 planting, as that is understood in this country. What strikes 

 German foresters who visit this country is the way in which 

 poor waste lands, suitable for timber-production, have been 

 neglected, and the extent to which good land, often of the 

 highest agricultural value, has been planted. It has to be 

 explained to him that one of the worst features of our forestry 

 has been that the landscape-gardener has had more to do 

 with the laying-out of our woods and plantations than anybody 

 else, and has indulged his " aesthetic " tastes at the expense 

 of true forestry, of which he is usually ignorant, dotting the 

 landscape with his belts and patches of woodland in much the 

 same way that he lays out borders and beds in a flower-garden, 

 regardless of soil, species, or utility, and this not unfrequently 

 when he has scope for much better things. 



The conditions affecting the choice of situations for timber- 

 crops are, first, elevation and aspect ; second, rainfall ; third, 

 rental value of the land proposed to be planted ; fourth, soil ; 

 fifth,, accessibility and proximity to a market. Any one of these 

 conditions may materially affect the prospects of success, and 

 are here dealt with separately and in order. 



