122 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



an extra supply of nourishment. Good seed years occur 

 about every six years, when very heavy crops are sometimes 

 produced. Although the seed is eaten in large quantities 

 by pigeons, squirrels, mice, etc., there is always sufficient 

 buried in the leaves, or left over, to provide an abundant 

 crop of seedlings the following spring. The year 1900 was 

 an extraordinary beech seed year, and the ground beneath 

 the trees the following spring was literally carpeted with 

 the silver and green cotyledons of the seedlings. After a 

 plentiful crop of seedlings have made their appearance, the 

 removal of the old crop should be gradually made at 

 intervals of five years or so, until it has disappeared 

 altogether. In the early stages the young beech likes 

 shelter, and will not suffer much for the first twelve or 

 fifteen years, after which their leading shoots will begin to 

 grow crooked if not relieved. 



Scots Fir. — This is a tree which requires little or no 

 assistance beyond the provision of seed trees at suitable 

 intervals, and a surface covered with heather. Without the 

 latter it is practically useless to look for a crop of self-sown 

 seedlings, for both grass and herbaceous growth choke them 

 as soon as they appear. Another peculiarity of the Scots 

 fir is its refusal to regenerate under the shade of the parent 

 trees. The humus layer, consisting of dry or partially 

 decayed needles, is fatal to seedlings, although they ger- 

 minate on it in thousands, but on an open stretch of short 

 heather Scots fir will come up freely, and there is little 

 necessity to replant this tree on natural moorland, if the 

 proper treatment is accorded it. 



Two methods are practicable with this tree which would 

 be out of the question with many. The winged seed enables 

 it to be carried long distances by the wind, and mature 

 trees are able to seed ground within a radius of 200 or 

 300 yards. The seed trees, therefore, may either be left 

 standing at the rate of twenty or so to the acre, or 

 the mature wood may be cut in narrow strips about 200 

 yards in width. In either case sufficient seed will be 

 regularly distributed over the cleared area within a period 

 of three or four years, and, if the conditions are favourable, 

 a more or less regular crop of seedlings will spring up 



