ERRORS IN CULTIVATION OF WOOD. 25 



of confining the several species respectively, to those 

 parts where the soil is adapted for their production. 

 By this means it often happens, that many of the 

 plants go off, or die, in a year or two after they are 

 put into the ground, which makes it necessary to 

 fill their places with fresh ones, thereby greatly in- 

 creasing the expense, at the first outset, to say no- 

 thing of the loss that is incurred, by the plantation 

 being in the end much less valuable than it other- 

 wise would have been. It is true, indeed, that se- 

 veral different kinds of trees may be often planted 

 in the same soil, with equal or nearly equal advan- 

 tage. Thus any land that is proper for the Scots 

 fir, will be found to answer well with the larch ; 

 the birch may be planted successfully along vdth the 

 spruce ; and the same thing holds in a variety of 

 other instances. It is equally true, however, that 

 there are many soils capable of bringing the larch 

 to a large size, in which the Scots fir wiU scarce 

 grow at all, and that the birch will become a fine 

 tree, in situations where the spruce will never ex- 

 ceed the dimensions of a mere shrub. Nothing is 

 therefore more essential to success in planting, than 

 a proper adaptation of the trees to the soil. 



Another very common error, in attempts to rear 



