148 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



compared with the pines. That is to say, the beech being a 

 better shade-bearer than the oak or ash, it will stand crowding 

 better, as also will the spruces compared. to the pines. But 

 the practical results go further than this in computing the final 

 crop. According to Schlich, vol. i., p. 168, an acre of beech 

 at maturity contains a greater volume of timber than does the 

 ash or oak, and the spruces a greater volume than the Scotch 

 fir. In the case of the spruces and pines, Schlich gives the 

 following figures, "which give the average growing stock 

 per fully-stocked acre at the age of one hundred and twenty 

 years, in localities of the first quality in each case" -. — 



Silver Fir 17,400 cubic feet per acre. 



Spruce 14,500 „ „ 



Scotch Pine ... ... 9,780 „ „ 



These figures are suggestive, as regards the great advantage 

 which shade-enduring power gives one species over another, 

 and the • comparative productiveness of the pine and spruce. 

 They are also a guide for the thinner, whether dealing with 

 mixed or pure plantations, showing him that the room required 

 by each species need not be regulated by the rule-of-thumb 

 practice of giving all the trees equal space, but by their power 

 to bear crowding. A beech or a spruce in a mixed wood may 

 be crushed, but an oak or a birch may not be to the same 

 extent. 



In German forests it is difficult to tell artificial from natural 

 regeneration. What British foresters would call crowding to an 

 injurious degree is, in practice, the rule. Our methods of 

 frequent and severe thinning are simply regarded as wasteful, 

 and excite astonishment in German foresters who visit this 

 country. In the first place, so far as we observed over a large 

 extent of the forest lands, the Germans do not plant wider 

 than from three to four feet under the most favourable circum- 

 stances, and this width is adopted to save expense and not 

 because closer planting is objected to ; and at high elevations 

 the distance is reduced to two feet or thereabout, and two and 

 three plants are put in each hole. Of course, the young trees 

 are not bought, as in Britain, from public nurseries, but are 

 raised in the woods and put out when about six inches high 

 at small cost. Where practicable, seed is sown on the rough 

 surface, and in large tracts, as in the case of the beech, natural 

 regeneration is trusted to, but the thinning afterwards is the 

 same in both cases. The first and great object is to cover the 

 ground as soon as possible, and establish an overhead canopy 

 which is maintained unbroken till the end, or nearly to the end 



