Section 40 England’s Trees1
The principal native2 trees are the3 oak, ash, elm, poplar, aspen, birch, larch, alder, hawthorn, hazel, and willow. The beech, maple, horse-chestnut4, Spanish chestnut5, walnut6, sycamore, acacia, weeping willow, cedar, and Lombardy poplar have been introduced.
The moist climate of7 England is8 eminently suited to the growth of9 forest-trees, and we find that in ancient times the larger part of the country presented one10 vast scene of forest, as11 the12 uncleared districts of America do now. The13 few scattered patches of natural wood which remain, show14 what was once the character of nearly the whole country.—Hewitt, Physical Geography of England and Wales.
Notes
1 See S. 14, N. 3.
2 einheimisch.
3 die Eiche. The article is repeated in this passage only when the subsequent noun is of different gender or number from the preceding one.
4 die Roßkastanie.
5 die echte Kastanie.
6 der Wallnußbaum.
7 Englands.
8 to be suited to a thing, einer Sache zu´träglich sein; eminently, außerordentlich, which place before ‘zuträglich’.
9 Use the gen. of the def. art. The definite article should be used in all cases where an object is individualised or singled out from other objects.
10 one — forest = an almost uninterrupted scene of forest, Waldlandschaft, f.
11 as... do now, wie noch jetzt.
12 die ungelichteten Waldgegenden.
13 The — remain, Die wenigen zerstreut liegenden Überreste natürlicher Gehölze.
14 Say ‘show the character which formerly belonged almost to the whole country’.