AND PLANTING ON PREPARED GROUND. 69 
manufacturing towns; in their manufacture there is perhaps 
a greater waste of timber than in that of any other article 
in ordinary demand ; they are readily manufactured by machi- 
nery from any closely grained hardwood, and only weigh about 
one fourth or one fifth part of the timber from which they 
are formed; consequently, timber adapted for such purposes 
is valuable, even though very remotely situated. 
In a piece of ground of great extent its quality is often 
found to vary. A loose deep earth will grow trees of any 
description ; a dry, poor, gravelly, or chalky formation, will 
suit best for the beech, the birch, and the pines. A clayey 
soil, or a deep clayey gravel, is generally best adapted for the 
oak, and the most profitable tree to intersperse with it is the 
larch. The oak feeds chiefly on the subsoil, and the larch on 
the surface ; the latter, being of upright growth, is not apt to 
injure its associate. It is usual, in the formation of planta- 
tions intended to be chiefly of oak, to begin by planting pines 
and trees for shelter, and to insert the oak plants after the 
nurses are a few years advanced ; this is a good protection for 
the safety of the oak plants; but it is only necessary on bare 
and exposed ground, as the larch and pines advance more 
rapidly than the oak, and furnish shelter in a very short time, 
when the whole are inserted at once. Beech is more profitably 
grown alone than with a mixture. It is apt to become branchy 
and broad-headed ; its timber is only valuable when it yields 
clean tall trunks, and these are most easily produced when the 
species stands by itself; interspersed, it is apt to prevail over 
more valuable sorts, and to become of a branchy and worth- 
less figure. The ash and Scotch elm are trees which yield 
valuable timber, particularly for the purposes of agriculture ; 
they grow well together, and are almost equally hardy ; they 
require a good, deep, loose soil, and the ash prefers that which 
has a tendency to moisture. In low situated alluvial soil, with 
moisture, the silver fir acquires a great size ; where the soil is 
very suitable, it is often very profitably grown. When young, 
it should be interspersed with faster-growing trees, such as 
larch, willows, etc., as nurses, closely planted ; the silver fir 
