In one amateur experiment almost every tree has been Smothered
out of life except the Japanese larches. They survived because they grew fast enough in the first year to raise their heads above the inferior tangle. Some foresters object to the species, and hold it at the best to be inferior to the commoner larch (a tree which on very different grounds the poet Wordsworth abused violently on its introduction). But it has its votaries ; and this particular instance of its survival when all its neighbours perished is perhaps worth .quoting. A tree of which a very great deal has been heard in the last few years is the Sitka spruce. I have never seen any tree grow quite so straightly and strongly as the Sitka in that Paradise of trees, the westerly districts of Shropshire. It is what gardeners call a wonderful " doer." But it has drawbacks. Its tough, firm leaves are so spiny that a close plantation may become impenetrable ; and the boughs bear much too close a resemblance to the back of a hedgehog to be endured by a pheasant. A Sitka plantation will be empty of life. In the experiment under discussion the Sitkas defeated the weeds, but soon after died for no known reason.
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