TREES AND SOIL, 



381 



the Persian Quince, the Constantinople 

 Quince, and xheA?iger\ this comes free- 

 ly from seed and is that most used for 

 grafting Pears. So few of these named 

 kinds have been tried in Britain that it is 

 too soon to speak with certainty of their 

 value, until growers have given them a 

 trial in this country. 



Besides these fruiting 

 °'%ecTes. lng Quinces a few of thekinds 

 grown wholly for their 

 flowers yield fruits of some value when 

 cooked. Maule's Quince (Pyrus Mau- 

 let) y a beautiful little shrub with scarlet 

 flowers from the mountains of Japan, 

 bears bright yellow fruits flushed with 

 red, of the size of small Pippins, very 



JAPANESE qUINCE. 



fragrant, and of agreeable acid flavour. 

 If preserved when fully ripe these are 

 excellent in tarts or as jelly. A scarce 

 seedling form of the Japanese Quince, 

 known as the citron-fruited or Cydonia 

 citripomma, also yields fruits which may 

 be preserved. They are oblongin shape, 

 of the size of a hen's egg, very fragrant, 

 and orange-red in colour when mature. 

 Though worthless while raw, they give 



a jelly of good colour and pleasantly 

 acid in flavour. A form of the Chinese 

 Quince (Cydonia chinensis) grown in the 

 south of Europe, bears very large oblong 

 fruits, but they are worthless even when 

 cooked. B. 

 TREES AND SOIL. 



In the wood there can be no question of arti- 

 ficial manures or of cultivation in the agri- 

 cultural sense of the word; by what means, 

 then, does the soil of a forest maintain its fer- 

 tility, and even improve its condition ? This 

 is brought about by the action of the surface 

 covering immediately above the natural soil. 

 This may be either living covert, composed or 

 plants too small to rank as brushwood, and dead 

 covert, formed of the debris of vegetable matter 

 — leaves, needles, dead branches and twigs, 

 shreds of bark, berries, excretions, and decay- 

 ing matter generally. According to Professor 

 Henry, the weight of dead covert falling each 

 November in woods twenty years old in the 

 district of Nancy, varies with the soil from 2\ 

 to 2-> tons to the acre, and in the Beech forests 

 of the same district it is double this weight. 

 Professor Ebermayer sums up the action of 

 this dead covert as follows : — Being spongy, it 

 freely draws air and moisture into its network of 

 channels, the amount of water absorbed being 

 two and a half times its own weight. It pro- 

 tects the soil from evaporation and the harden- 

 ing due to beating rain, and at the same time 

 provides a natural system of drainage which 

 prevents the surface soil from being carried 

 away, and conveys the moisture to the subsoil 

 where it is wanted. 



Under the influence of natural 

 ferments the elements of the 

 decayed covert are slowly dis- 

 solved into a powdery substance of dark colour, 

 often black, and with a peculiar odour : this is 

 humus, or leaf-mould. It isof the utmost value, 

 and we may here consider its special properties 

 in view of the large part that it plays in forest 

 soils. Leaf-mould absorbs and retains far more 

 moisture than other soils, and while always 

 cool itis never wet, thanks to its porous nature. 

 It acts also as a wonderful equaliser of soils, 

 resembling clay, in that it will bind the most 

 powdery sands, but so free from the stiffness 



Leaf-soil and 

 Peat. 



