Our forests and woodlands . poles of twenty to thirty years ofage. On soil of a less favourable character thegrowth is of course less, while it does not reachits maximum till from ten to fifteen years thick fall of leaves, rich in potash, yields thefinest class of woodland mould, so that at thisstage of growth dense thickets of beech enrichand improve the soil in a greater degree than anyother tree-crop. Stimulated thereby, the growthin cubic contents proceeds so vigorously thatpure beech highwoods, on soils of only mediumquality, yield over 6000 cubic feet (true measure-ment) per ac
Our forests and woodlands . poles of twenty to thirty years ofage. On soil of a less favourable character thegrowth is of course less, while it does not reachits maximum till from ten to fifteen years thick fall of leaves, rich in potash, yields thefinest class of woodland mould, so that at thisstage of growth dense thickets of beech enrichand improve the soil in a greater degree than anyother tree-crop. Stimulated thereby, the growthin cubic contents proceeds so vigorously thatpure beech highwoods, on soils of only mediumquality, yield over 6000 cubic feet (true measure-ment) per acre ; but, unfortunately, only rather asmall percentage of this is usually classifiable asfirst-class timber, the bulk of it being too smallfor reckoning as such. The Buckinghamshire chair-industry grew upthrough the local supplies of beech; but now itis mainly dependent on imports of foreign wood,inferior in quality to that of home-growth. It is,therefore, a great pity we do not grow more beech. CHAPTER V The OtherHardwoods. Of the remaining hardwoods, the Elm haspeculiarities which distinguish it from the , Mountain, or Wych Elm ( Ulmus montana)^also known locally as wych hazel, is indigenousto Britain and seeds freely, but throws up fewsuckers; while the English or Common small-leaved Elm {U. campestris)^ a native of Italyintroduced by the Romans and now forming per-haps the most typical feature in English rurallandscape, in our cooler climate only formsgerminable seed during exceptionally warmsummers. To compensate for this, however, it 149 150 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS is endowed by nature with a strong reproductivecapacity in throwing up stoles or suckers fromits roots, in which respect it is only equalled bythe aspen. Signs of uncommonly strong repro-ductive power are often to be seen in spring,when stems that have been felled, logged, anddragged out from the hedgerows in winter sendout a flush of twigs here and there in making afinal though feeble recuperativ
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