FLORA 



AND SYLVA. 



Vol.1. No. 7.] OCTOBER, 190 3. [Monthly. 



THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL. 

 HOME LANDSCAPE AND 

 HOME WOODS. UNDER- 

 WOODS AND WHAT TO DO 

 WITH THEM. 

 In our woodlands no plan was so firmly 

 established as the underwood so often 

 seen in the southern and other parts of 

 the country , an old system, and for many 

 years a profitable one. Underwood so 

 planted and cut every ten years or so 

 gave a good rent, while the " top "wood 

 which arose among it was cut to profit 

 now and then, the matured trees taken 

 and the growing trees left. But this sys- 

 tem is a good one no longer, underwood 

 which once paid from / 1 5 to ^25 an 

 acre only fetching a few pounds, and is 

 often not saleable at any price. In hop- 

 growing districts better prices for useful 

 growths are paid, but, generally, under- 

 wood has ceased to pay much more than 

 enough to mend the fences, and its cut- 

 ting and clearing often a never-ending 

 nuisance in woodland work. I often 

 wish, looking at the masses of growth 

 removed in one cutting of underwood, 

 that the strength of it all had gone into 

 tall Ash, Beech, or Oak, sound native 

 timber instead of stuff so little in de- 



mand that the men who buy it often 

 leave much of it on the ground to rot. 

 The question is important for owners 

 with many acres of underwood, not even 

 pretty to look at — poor, thin, worn-out 

 growths — too often neglected. What is 

 to be done ? Generally we should con- 

 vert as much as we could of the under- 

 wood into trees — slow work, and yet 

 work that must be faced if our woods 

 are ever to be worthy of our land either 

 for profit or beauty. 



Some account of what has been done 

 on an estate with much underwood may 

 be of interest. The woods are often on 

 rough ground — slopes and gullies, with 

 Oak, Beech, or Ash, standing amidst 

 the underwood, so that it is difficult to 

 fence against rabbits, as we do new plan- 

 tations of little trees. In old woodlands 

 the trees oftenest attacked by them are 

 young trees freshly set out, so, to avoid 

 the great expense of wiring, the plan 

 adopted was to select healthy young 

 saplings as tall as could be transplanted 

 with safety (10 to 12 feet high), and to 

 plant them at about 1 2 feet apart among 

 the underwood stools, in the more open 

 spaces. As they came from the nursery 

 each bundle of trees was plunged at once, 



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