948 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



In the Baltic Provinces of Russia it is common as coppice treated with a short 

 revolution ; and often takes possession of forests, when the larger trees have been cut 

 away, and succeeds in doing so, as it is able to grow very well on dry soil. In Germany 

 and Austria it grows chiefly on the banks of streams and rivers, but is also met with on 

 hilly ground and on mountain precipices. It is very rarely met with on peat-bogs. 

 In the Alps it is especially common on gravelly soil, and it is the most common 

 species in many places, where the mountain torrents form vast areas of gravel and 

 sand, through which their branches spread in all directions. One of the most 

 remarkable and beautiful of these woods is situated at 2500 feet elevation on 

 the river Romanche near Bourg d'Oisans in Isere. The whole area is about 200 

 acres, one -half of which is composed of a dense wood of grey alder, mixed with 

 a small number of aspens and ashes, the other half being more open and consisting 

 of a mixture of grey alder and white willow. The dense wood is treated as coppice, 

 with a revolution of thirty years, forty standards per acre being reserved each time 

 of felling. When cut, the grey alder produces vigorous shoots, which grow rapidly 

 till they are thirty-five or forty years old ; after which time growth ceases and the 

 shoots begin to die. At Bourg d'Oisans natural seedlings are very numerous. 



The grey alder, unlike the common alder, suckers freely from the root, often at 

 a great distance from the parent stem. It layers easily, and can also be propagated 

 by cuttings. This facility of reproduction renders it of great service for the 

 re-afforestation of the mountains in France, especially in the difficult work of 

 planting trees on the sides of the torrents, where the soil is easily washed away. 



Alnus incana is not a native of the British Isles, and has not yet been discovered 

 in the fossil state there. (A. H.) 



Cultivation 



Though the tree is hardly known to English foresters, I believe that it may 

 become an exceedingly useful one on account of its extreme hardiness, rapidity of 

 growth and ability to thrive in very cold heavy soil, and in places subject to late and 

 early frosts. I have used it with great success as a nurse to trees like Thuya plicata, 

 in situations which were too wet and cold for that tree when young, and believe that 

 it might be economically used for quickly suppressing rank herbage which would 

 smother more tender and slower-growing trees in low and damp situations. It can 

 be procured quite cheaply from French nurseries as one- or two-year seedlings, and 

 grows with extraordinary rapidity on any soil, providing a dense cover, and rendering 

 the land fit for planting. It soon overtops other trees, and if left standing requires 

 the branches to be lopped so as to allow their heads to get up. It seems to thrive 

 equally well on wet ground, and to grow much better than the common alder on soil 

 too dry for that tree. I believe that the wood is at least as good, and according to 

 Mouillefert is less brittle, than that of the common alder. 



Though Loudon says that it was introduced as long ago as 1780, I have never 

 seen a tree of any size in England; but Sir Hugh Beevor has sent me a photo- 

 graph of one at Hargham in Norfolk, which" measures about 72 feet high by 3 feet 



