The newly formed Forestry Departments of the English, Scottish, and Irish Boards of Agriculture have the results of experimental planting by arboriculturists to guide them in their choice of species. The opinion is sometimes expressed that British forests should be composed of indigenous species, on the principle that Nature has indicated which species are best adapted to our soil and climate. This is to overlook the part played by chance in determining what trees and herbs should form the vegetation of these islands. When the ice-mantle was slowly being withdrawn, after grinding down the mountains to mere stumps of their pristine stature and strewing the plains with glacial débris, seeds wafted by winds and waves or borne by birds found a footing, and those for which the conditions of soil and climate then prevailing were suitable, established themselves most readily and formed the staple vegetation. But those conditions have greatly altered since that far-off time; vegetation itself is a main agent in changing the character of the surface soil, adapting it to support growths of a different character to those which first took possession thereof. It is, therefore, no derogation to the admirable qualities of our native oak, ash, and pine that it has been found to our advantage to cultivate such exotic species as larch, spruce, sweet chestnut, and sycamore. Among the vast variety of foreign forest trees introduced to this country during the nineteenth century, it is almost certain that some will prove of great economic value when submitted to scientific treatment. I have endeavoured in these pages to recapitulate in a convenient form what has been ascertained by experiment of the behaviour of foreign trees under British conditions, relying, not blindly, upon the conclusions arrived at by masters of the craft, as corroborated or checked by personal observation of a practical and somewhat sedulous nature, extending over youth, manhood, and old age. Among those to whom I owe cordial thanks for providing negatives and other material for illustration are the Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Radnor, the Hon. Hew H. Dalrymple, Professor William Somerville and Mr. Gerald Loder. HERBERT MAXWELL. MONREITH, 1914. Contents PAGE I. THE OAK 1 II. THE BEECH 16 III. THE SPANISH CHESTNUT 26 IV. THE ASH 33 V. THE LINDEN TREE OR LIME 42 VI. THE ELMS 49 VII. THE SYCAMORE AND OTHER MAPLES 56 VIII. THE PLANE 64