HOME WOODS, 



39 



and chimney, are all against us, so it is not uncommon in a country house 

 to see people shivering round an ugly grate with a coal fire. Our evergreen 

 wood is, it is true, not such a good fuel for the open fire as the native hard 

 woods — Oak, Beech, Ash, or Maple — but for closed ranges and furnaces it 

 makes a good fuel. I have lately been staying in a country house in Hungary, 

 where all the cooking was done with wood, there being thirty-five people to 

 provide for. Even the electricity for lighting the house and offices was gene- 

 rated from the grubbed stubs of Fir trees which in this country would be left 

 to rot. Every cottage on the estate was warmed with wood only, and with 

 perfect comfort. 



The objection to the greasy coal of northern England, apart from its cost, 

 is that it pollutes the air of the country as well as that of the town, and many 

 good gardens and country houses are defiled by it. I have placed in cottages 

 a wood-burning kitchener which answers well, and the people are grateful 

 for the cleanliness and the good cookery and baking done with it. The fuel 

 we use is such as may often be had in old shrubberies and underwoods — 

 batwood it is called — of slight value in the district. Some simple means of 

 cutting it up is all that is needed as to economy. 



As some of the Pines grow 3 feet a year in soil too poor for any agri- 

 cultural use, but few words are needed to give an idea of the enormous amount 

 of firing that may be grown in this way, even from the mere thinning of the 

 woods. And here and always it should be said that we must in all these 

 cases follow the true forest way of close planting, only thinning when the 

 thinning will pay for the labour, when the trees to remain are close enough to 

 keep the shade canopy overhead. 



Another reason for giving more thought to the woodland as a nobler kind 

 of garden is the lovely colour of trees throughout the year in good planting. 



Mr. J. Meehan, writing to an American paper, describes the 



Tree Colour. r f ' 



trees of England as " keeping up their dark green-hued foliage 

 to the last ! " He must have left us too soon, as our woods are often full of 

 colour right through the autumn, some of the American trees- — where people 

 have the art of grouping them in an effective way — having as fine a colour in 

 our country as in their own. It is a delusion to suppose that our native trees 

 have not fine colour, for scarcely one of them is not remarkable for it. The 

 Oak woods around London are superb in colour in fine autumns, and the 

 Beech woods nearly every year from Scotland downwards. To the artistic eye, 

 open to delicate gradation and variety of good colour, that of British wood- 

 lands is quite as good as any other, not forgetting the winter effects, often most 

 beautiful, from that of Alders by the busy stream to Oaks massed close with 

 silvered stems. Almost every native tree and wild shrub is beautiful in colour 

 of flower, leaf, and fruit. Scarlet Dogwood, red and yellow Willows, Gorse, 



