THE NEW FORESTRY. 



SECTION II. — MIXED WOODS. 



There are various kinds of these, some bad and some 

 good. Unfortunately the excessive number of species inclu- 

 ded in British tree lists, and recommended for planting, has 

 been the cause of a great deal of indiscriminate mixing, 

 resulting in little else than trouble and loss in the end. 

 Generally speaking, mixed woods in this country may be 

 divided into four classes, viz., mixtures of different varieties 

 of the conifera only ; mixtures of broad-leaved species only ; 

 mixtures consisting of both the conifera and broad-leaved 

 species ; and grouped woods. The three first are common, 

 and it may be asserted that probably nothing has tended more 

 to make the forester's task difficult in this country than the 

 indiscriminate mixing of species of greatly dissimilar habit. 

 It has caused endless trouble in thinning, and much pruning 

 that should never have been needed. Our very mixed woods 

 would puzzle a Continental forester who does not contemplate 

 such mixtures as ours ; hence a good deal of the confusion that 

 has arisen when home and foreign forestry has been compared 

 If a German forester had to deal with an English wood 

 consisting of a general mixture of numerous species, and 

 had to proceed on his own principle, he would not dally 

 by pruning and hacking the biggest and best trees in 

 the wood to give the weaker species an equal chance, 

 but would remove what he calls the dominated and 

 suppressed trees ; and as these would be the weaker 

 species, the result, in no long period, would be that the 

 wood would consist of the species that should have been 

 planted exclusively at the beginning. The English forester, 

 on the other hand, wants to preserve his mixture as he began ; 

 and to give weak and strong a chance he has to fight the battle 

 with the pruning knife, without regard to overhead canopy. 

 The fast-growing poplar will be many feet above the tallest 

 of its neighbours and extending its branches over their heads 

 at an early stage ; the beech, while asserting itself in height- 

 growth, will, from its shade-enduring power, extend its lateral 

 branches, to the ground and smother all the weaker species 

 within its reach ; and so on with other species in mixtures in 

 which much disparity of habit exists. The same remarks 

 apply to conifera mixtures when planted in nearly equal pro- 

 portions. Such species as the Douglas fir, for example, will 

 oust most of its neighbours, and the common and silver spruces 

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