THE ALDER. 303 
price than other forest trees, on account of being easily grown ; 
partly from the want of a regular demand; but mainly on 
account of its very rapid growth after being two or three 
years old. The plants must then either be sold, or allowed 
a space so large that it is unprofitable to keep them, and 
their destination is, not unfrequently, the fuel-heap. When 
dried, they become brittle, and rot rapidly, which renders 
them unsuitable even for stakes or props to support other 
plants. . 
Although the tree is often seen in an aquatic state, or in 
very marshy ground, yet it luxuriates and becomes a large 
tree in land that is well drained and has no superabundance 
of mvisture. When a plant, it is tenacious of life, and from 
its rapid growth it is well adapted for being interspersed as 
nurses in plantations, in bleak and exposed situations, where 
it readily makes an appearance, and serves as a protection in 
establishing more valuable trees. It may afterwards be re- 
moved in the early thinning of such plantations, but it is 
for the most. part planted alone in marsh ground and along 
the margins of streams. There it is particularly valuable 
for binding and consolidating the banks by its close spread- 
ing roots, which are rendered the more effective when the 
tree is kept as coppice-wood, or cut at intervals of eight or 
ten years, so that the trees do not get so tall that the roots 
would become disturbed during rough weather. 
Its uses, in a growing state, consist in its supplying fagot- 
wood and hurdle-wood, and in reclaiming low meadow land, 
either continually or partially flooded. This is best done by 
ridging up part of the soil in summer time, and then plant- 
ing the young trees on those midges in spring. In a few 
years, by the fall of the leaves and the operation of the roots, 
the soil becomes dry and firm. That it has the opposite 
tendency, viz., to create moisture, is a vulgar error, current 
in many books of Arboriculture. It is also highly to be 
valued as a free grower for several years in exposed districts, 
if the soil has been trenched ; and it is especially serviceable 
in nursing more valuable trees planted by the sea-side. It 
