132 INTERPLANTING. 
It may be noticed that the chief cost of these measures for improving 
the stocking would come during the early part of the first eet of ei 
100 years. With improved forestry conditions, improved soul, an the 
study of skilled foresters on the spot, the regeneration of the forest at the 
second rotation from now would be considerably easier. 
Soru-MAINTENANCE. 
Interplanting in the New Zealand native ** bush ’’ would have for 
its analogy in European forestry the ** coppice-under-standarc system 
of regular forestry. The existing bush would keep the ground covered 
and without deterioration, while the planted trees would grow up as 
“ standards *’ with clean straight stems. But—and this is an important 
point—the standards would be left to grow up close and gradually kill 
down the undergrowth, as is the case in a European “ coppice-under- 
standard ’’ forest, being converted to ‘‘ high *’ forest. 
Soil-maintenance is one of the objects ever before foresters. In 
soil-maintenance the native ‘‘ bush’’ would perform the office of Beech 
in Europe, and, as it appeared to me, Beech in the wet Eucalypt forests 
of north-west Tastnania. When ninety members of the English Arbori- 
cultural Society went with him on a tour through the German forests, 
Sir W. Schlich summarized the function of European Beech in these 
memorable words :— 
Beech is the *‘successful foster-mother of all forest management in these 
latitudes.” Forests, even if started pure, are under or interplanted or sown with 
Beech at an earlier or later period of life; for instance, Larch at fifteen to thirty 
years, Scotch-pine at thirty to forty years, Oak at forty to sixty years. Ash, 
Sycamore, and others are similarly underplanted or mixed with Beech. Even in 
the case of Spruce and Silver-fir forests, a moderate admixture of Beech is now 
insisted on, because its leaf-mould keeps the soil sweet and prevents an excessive 
accumulation of acids in it, as often happens where Firs are grown continually - 
over a long period of time. 
Foresters in the Black Forest aim at a 10-per-cent. admixture of 
Beech among the Silver-fir and Spruce. The magnificent Oaks in the 
Spessart Forest—‘‘ sessile ’’ Oak, with specially valuable timber—stand 
in an admixture of Beech. 
Apart from what is well known to foresters, here is an experimental 
proof of the influence of the forest-floor on the forest-tree, Fifteen years 
ago the Austrian Forest Department sowed experimental plots of Spruce 
with and without Lupins (Lupinus perennis). The Lupin-planted plot 
now shows stronger trees, towards double the size, (Journal of Forestry, 
Washington, December, 1918.) Here the Lupin probably provided 
nitrogen. Fungi and forest humus, it has been conclusively shown, also 
fix nitrogen. The work of Professor Henry. of the Nancy Forest School, 
on the subject may be consulted. 
NEw ZEALAND AND FRANCE ALIKE IN THETR FORHSTS. 
Two-thirds of the forests of France are ‘‘ coppice-under-standard ”’ 
forest. This is comparable with the larger part of the Kauri and 
‘‘mixed ’’ forest of New Zealand. In the Waipoua Forest the ‘‘ over- 
forest ’’ of Kauri and the ‘‘ under-forest ’’ of inferior timbers is every- 
where more or less clearly marked. It is this two-thirds copse, with 
its low timber-yield but high rate of money-interest, that now makes 
French forests figure low in general forest statistics. It is curious to 
note that as soon as New Zealand forests come under scientific manage- 
ment there will be this close resemblance between them and the forests 
