NATIVE TREES BEST FOR BEAUTY OR PROFIT 



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NATIVE TREES BEST FOR BEAUTY OR PROFIT. 



If we have eyes for the highest beauty in tree-life we may find that, after looking 

 for it round the world accessible to us, and having gone through all books, pic- 

 tures, and spectacles of Californian and other giant trees, we may have to seek for 

 its highest expression at home among the kinds native of our Isles. But we live 

 in a time when the pursuit of things exotic is so active that the value of native 

 trees is too often forgotten. We see in books of much show of learning, like 

 Brown's " Forester," that trees are named as being fit for forest work in Britain 

 which are not only of no proved value, but even require a greenhouse to live 

 in, like the Norfolk Island Pine. Catalogues, too, nourish the delusion that 

 we must look to other lands for all our good things, and we see men planting 

 many costly and useless trees, who never plant native trees. Wretched planta- 

 tions these costly exotic trees often make, as all may see who watch them for 

 a few years. While with the native tree (given a suitable soil) there is no going 

 back, with the foreigner all is risk. It is not a matter of hardiness only ; a tree 

 may be as hardy as the Spruce on the mountains of Central Europe, and yet do 

 as poorly as it does in Southern England. The native tree is ready to respond 

 to every impulse of the season, is happy with our rainfall — often a slight one in 

 many districts — and, given the soil right for it, soon makes in growth an end 

 of all the pretensions of exotic rivals. Soil and right situation every tree must 

 have ; the rock from which springs the column of the Pine will do nothing for 

 the Oak, and any tree, native or exotic, is profitless and ugly on ground it does 

 not thrive on. 



As to quality and value of wood, the native tree is by far the best. Nothing 

 else that can be done with the land that suits our native Oak will pay so well 

 while causing so little labour. The natural Beech woods of Normandy and 

 Britain are among those that more than repay the owners. No foreign tree we 

 grow, except the Larch (now stricken in many districts by a disease which 

 threatens to make it useless for us), equals in value the wood of our Oak, Ash, 

 and Tree Willows. The facility of increase of our native trees should also be 

 thought of in their favour ; and it is clear from what we may see in a neglected 

 field that the wealden land in Kent or Sussex would soon be a forest of Oak 

 if let alone. If we plant an arable field — one that has been under the plough 

 for generations — with Pine, we shall probably find Ash, Oak, and Birch, sown 

 by squirrels, mice, or winds, starting up here and there, and keeping pace with 

 the quickest growing Pines. But it is not only the value as timber of our native 

 trees I wish to show, it is their beauty. No trees introduced from other countries 

 equal in beauty our native ones, with the exception of the Cedar of Lebanon. 

 In many districts there are no natural old woods where our native trees could 

 be seen in their forest forms ; but the beauty exists for all who care to see it, 



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