Fir, pine and larch afforestation is probably being overdone, even
for economic purposes, and quite certainly for aesthetic. Asa home for birds nothing is worse ; and of all the sorts of conifer that have been tried the very worst (not economically, but from every other point of view) is the Sitka spruce. The most detestable spectacle in the shape of a wood that ever I entered was a grove of most flourishing Sitka, planted rather close, on an estate in Shropshire, which is the home of many of the best trees in Britain. It was dark ; it was hard to penetrate ; the sharp nobs on the branches forbade even a bird's claw to perch or roost there. Not even—if I may quote forgotten Browning twice in a page, not even
" a great black bird, Apollyon's bosom friend, sailed past."—
The wood in short, though of small enough dimensions, was good for nothing except timber. Sitka has its uses with the other conifers ; but it would be better, many economists and all naturalists think, if more ash and beech and perhaps oak, and that very popular and useful timber, sycamore, were more freely planted in the stead of the alien larch that so irritated Wordsworth. There are trees and trees.
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