+-----------+---+------------------+------+-----+----+----+------+-----+ | |No.|Rocks. |Apple.|Pear.|Oak.|Elm.|Beech.|Firs.| +-----------+---+------------------+------+-----+----+----+------+-----+ |Cretaceous{| 1 |Chalk | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 5 | |Rocks. {| 2 |Green Sands | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 3 | | {| 3 |Gault | 4 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | |Jurassique}| 4 |Oxford Clay | 6 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 1 | |Rocks. }| 5 |Oolite Freestone | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 5 | | }| 6 |Lias | 10 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 1 | | | 7 |New Red Sandstone | 8 | 10 | 7 | 12 | 0 | 2 | | | 8 |Mountain Limestone| 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | | | 9 |Old Red Sandstone | 15 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 0 | 1 | +-----------+---+------------------+------+-----+----+----+------+-----+ These figures may serve to express—although roughly—the capacities of different formations for the production of fruit and forest trees, and it may be curious to note that, while the chalk and the oolite freestones, both composed of carbonate of lime, offer a remarkable agreement in point of dendrological productions, the mountain limestone, also consisting of carbonate of lime, affords very different results; here, no doubt, the different kinds of scenery presented by the rocks themselves have a decided influence on the general results. Much, however, of any geological influence in the growth of trees must depend upon the material rather than upon the position of the rocks forming the subsoil upon which they occur, and thus it may be expected that clays, limestones, and sands, and different mixtures of these, will each favour the growth of a peculiar spontaneous or native vegetation; so that, if we looked to a larger list of trees and coupled it with lists of herbaceous plants, we might make out even a stronger case, either for the effects of geological or lithological conditions; but enough has been said to point out that various trees naturally affect one position more than another, and so they succeed as the results of planting and cultivation in one kind of soil in preference to another, and it may be laid down as a rule, that pomaceous fruits and hard-wooded trees, as oak and elm, only _flourish_ in strong soils, though they may be imperfectly grown in all soils, whilst soft-wooded trees, as beech, lime, and the coniferæ, succeed best in lighter soils; hence, then, the planter who would try to grow vigorous oak on sandbeds would be disappointed, and while beech is the “weed” of the Cotteswold oolite, whoever tries to grow an orchard upon the freestone rocks is sure to meet with disappointment.