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The Country Gcntlanans Magazine 



at the top but wedge-shaped ; the furrows deeply corrugated in age, it retams the same 



are conversely shaped, being deepest at the character to extreme old age, although then 



bottom. The woodcut shews the trunk of an the trunk assumes all sorts of humps, bosses, 



oldoakin Windsor Park, said to be 400 years and protuberances: the only alteration is, 



old and known as Queen Anne's Oak. that it loses the light-we can hardly say 



' silvery hue of its youth — but the aluminum 



3. Beech. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ jj.g ea.rlier years. The 



The smooth bark of the Beech needs little woodcut is a study of a tree in Windsor 



illustration. It ahvays reminds us of a too Forest, known as Queen Adelaide's Beech, 



tight-fitting bodice : all the wrinkles are trans- Its circumference, within 3 feet of the ground, 



verse, and it looks as if it were on the point is 8 feet 6 inches. The figure shews the 



of bursting. Its grey colour, deepened in character of a moderately-sized stem, and its 



parts by the weather stains, is very effective picturesque appearance is not diminished by 



in a picture. Unlike the Birch, which, al- its having been mangled by the pruning- 



tliough silvery in youth, becomes rugged and knife. 



ON PRUNING AND THINNING FOREST TREES. 



-SECOND ARTICLE. 



WITH the \\e\\ of supporting our 

 statement, that pruning is injuri- 

 ous, we have turned up a Report made on 

 the subject by the Commissioners of Woods 

 and Forests in 1856, and have also made 

 some inquiry of timber merchants as to 

 the relative value of timber which has been 

 pruned, and of timber which has not been 

 so treated. 



We shall now submit to the reader a 

 short statement of the opinions and facts 

 we have gathered from these sources. To 

 make a connected story of it, however, we 

 may, in the first place, remind the reader 

 that previously to 1851 the management of 

 the Royal Woods and Forests was conjoined 

 with that of Woods and Buildings in one de- 

 })cirtment. In that year a division was made 

 by Parliament, and the Board of Land Reve- 

 nues and Woods and Forests were constituted 

 a separate establishment, under a chief 

 commissioner and two what may be called 

 working commissioners, between whom the 

 labour of the department was to be divided. 

 The Right Hon. T. F. Kennedy and the Hon. 

 Charles Gore were then appointed the two 

 commissioners, and to Mr Kennedy fell the 



management of the Avhole of the Royal forests 

 excepting Windsor. He set to work vigor- 

 ously, apparently under the mistaken impres- 

 sion that the Woods and Forests were an 

 Augean stable of corruption and mismanage- 

 ment which it was his mission to clear away. 

 With this preconception it is not surprising 

 that he speedily embroiled himself with all 

 the officials. He got Mr Brown down from 

 Arniston to examine the forests, got no end 

 of reports from him upon them — the general 

 burden of which was that everything was 

 wrong, and that new plans, which he recom- 

 mended, should be adopted instead. Mr 

 Kennedy adopted these, and commenced a 

 mode of management which filled the minds 

 of many who were conversant with the subject 

 with the gravest alarm for the future of the 

 Royal Forests. The result was that he raised 

 such a general storm against his administra- 

 tion that he was compelled to give way, and 

 surrendered his appointment before he had 

 filled it eighteen months. 



In the Report of the Commissioners of 

 Woods and Forests in 1856, they speak in 

 strong terms of the " ruinous effects " (i). 86) 

 of the system which was adopted in 1852, 



