62 FAMILIAR TREES 



English forestry ; but in his " Forest Trees," Selby 

 does full justice to its merits. He points out that 

 maraschino is manufactured from an aUied species in 

 Dalmatia and the north of Italy, and that it is also 

 used in making ratafia ; whilst he becomes quite 

 enthusiastic on the subject of its timber. This close- 

 grained red wood is, he says, so easily worked, and 

 takes so fine a polish, as to be almost equal to 

 mahogany, whilst for alternate exposure to dryness 

 and moisture it is inferior only to the best Oak or 

 Larch. It is, he states further, in request for the 

 manufacture of certain musical instruments, and 

 having formed a high opinion of its value as a forest 

 tree, he urges its more extensive planting. 



Referring, no doubt, mainly to the Gean (P. 

 Avium), Selby points out that it will readily grow 

 straight upwards if planted close together ; and, being 

 a fast-growing tree, it is therefore well adapted for 

 planting as a " nurse " for Oak — that is, for admixture 

 with the slower-growing, but longer-hved, timber-trees, 

 to draw them up, being subsequently felled to make 

 room for their further development. The Cherry, 

 when grown imder these circumstances, may, Selby 

 continues, reach a height of sixty or seventy feet in 

 fifty or sixty years ; and, though it will then be felled, 

 so that the forest monarch may, for the last half- 

 century of his useful life, rule alone in his domain, up 

 to that time, owing to the loose and ascending arrange- 

 ment of its boughs, it will require but little pruning 

 to let in the light upon the young Oaks under its 

 sheltering care, so that it makes a better "nurse" 

 than either Beech or Ash. 



