the furniture factories of High Wycombe are now largely supplied with American birch and other foreign timber, which can be imported at a cheaper rate than beech is locally worth, I am inclined to think that where these woods have become too thin to be profitable, they would pay better if the seeding of ash—which grows well on this land though not to the largest size—was encouraged, and the vacant spaces filled up with larch, which, when mixed with beech, usually keeps healthy and grows to a larger size than it does alone.
It is probable, however, that as our coal supplies diminish, the value of firewood in England will increase, and as beech is one of the best firewoods we have, and one of the most economical to convert into suitable sizes, I should advise its being more largely planted in districts where coal is distant and costly.
As a nurse to other forest trees, especially larch and oak, it has a value greater than any deciduous tree, because, if not allowed to overtop its neighbours, its shade and the decay of its leaves preserve the soil in a cool, moist, and fertile condition. On poor calcareous and chalk soil it is specially valuable, and should be planted in mixture with most kinds of other trees, provided rabbits can be permanently excluded; but on account of its thin bark it is never safe in a deep snow or in hard winters from rabbits, which will bark the roots of trees 100 years old as readily as young trees.
The distance apart at which beech should be left in plantations, must depend on the goodness of the soil and on the size at which the trees can be most profitably cut. The better the land the thicker it may stand, but on really poor soil it grows so slowly if crowded, that as soon as it has attained a sufficient height and cleaned itself from branches up to 30–50 feet, it should be thinned to about 150 trees or even less to the acre. And I have often observed that on soils which are not naturally favourable for beech, it will not under any circumstances grow so straight and clean as in woods where natural regeneration is easy.
Notwithstanding what Loudon and some German foresters say about the beech being unfit for coppice-wood, I can show beech stools of considerable age which have been regularly cut over at intervals of about eighteen years for at least a century; whilst the growth of shoots from the stool on the dry rocky bank in Chatcombe Wood, near Seven Springs, on the Cotswold Hills, is faster than that of ash similarly treated. In the mountains of Calabria also, I have seen hillsides covered with beech scrub which appeared to have been coppiced for firewood for a very long period. Therefore, in cases where the beech has been planted merely as a nurse to oak or other trees, and there is no deciduous tree better adapted to this purpose, I should not hesitate to cut over the trees if they seemed likely to smother their neighbours, with the expectation of getting a quantity of excellent firewood or small poles fit for turning, fifteen to twenty years later.
As a clipped hedge the beech is useful, but does not grow so fast at first as the hornbeam. An excellent example of this fact may be seen near the entrance to Dr. Watney's place at Buckholt, near Pangbourne, where the two are growing in the same hedge; the beech treated in this way keeps its leaves all the winter and makes good shelter.[1]
- ↑ Cf. Loudon, loc. cit. p. 1965.
