There are paths for the garden and paths for the wood. A mistaken zeal that would insist on the trimness of the straight-edged garden walk in woodland or wild is just as much misplaced as if by slothful oversight an accumulation of dead leaves or other débris of natural decay were permitted to remain in the region of formal terrace or parterre.
Heath paths should be made by either planting or sowing. The common ling (_Calluna vulgaris_) makes the best turf. If the ground is sown it should be of nearly pure sandy peat, or weeds would be troublesome. If the path is to be made by planting, it should be done with two-year-old seedlings--nothing larger--planted about 6 inches apart. The path when grown should be mown with a machine once a year, in autumn after the blooming time of the heath. There must be no grass.
As there is vegetation to suit nearly all natural conditions, so those who find they have to undertake planting in poor, dry, hungry sands and gravels will find that there are plenty of trees and shrubs that can be used, though the choice is necessarily a more restricted one than they might make on better land. The very fact of the fewer number of available trees and shrubs may even be a benefit in disguise, as by obliging the planter to be more restricted in his choice the planting scheme will be all the more harmonious.
As to trees, Holly, Thorn, Juniper, Birch, Scotch Fir, and Mountain Ash are found wild on the poorest soils, and will even grow in almost pure sand. Oaks, though they never grow to the dimensions of the Oak of loamy woodlands, are abundant on poor soils, where they have a character of their own that is full of pictorial value. The lovely _Amelanchier_, daintiest of small trees, revels in sandy woods, as does also the Bird Cherry, another good native tree, while the Wild Cherry becomes a forest tree of large size and of loveliest bloom. Evergreen or _Holm Oak_ and _Arbutus_ are excellent in the south of England, enjoying the warmth and winter dryness of light soils.
Garden shrubs in general can be grown, though not so luxuriantly as on better soils, but some classes are especially successful on poor land such as _Genista virgata_. There are the Cistuses and Heaths, with Lavender and Rosemary, in the drier parts, and in the wetter places _Kalmias_, _Andromedas_, _Rhododendrons_, _Ledums_, _Pernettyas_, and _Vacciniums_, with the Candleberry Gale and the native Bog Myrtle, also Broom and Gorse, especially the Double Gorse. These, which are usually classed as peat shrubs, will succeed in any sandy soil with the addition of leaf-mould, and are among the most interesting and beautiful of our garden shrubs.