56 THE MANAGEMENT OF EPPING FOREST. 



had been done and the reasons for it. Putting these speeches together, it would 

 seem that we could not express the position better than by saying that the 

 Verderers have been engaged, for the most part, in removing the ' mildewed ' 

 ear in order that he may no longer ' blast his wholesome brother.' There appear 

 to be few parts of the Forest, if any, which are virgin. They have long been 

 subjected to pollarding and to pilfering, with the result that there are a great 

 many unsightly and disfigured trees which are not merely engaged in a struggle 

 for existence among themselves, but are weakening and killing trees of finer 

 growth and greater beauty. . . . Immediately after the thinning, one or two 

 spots certainly looked a little bare, but the near future will cure tlie crudeness 

 with a growth of heather and thorn. It was stated, and, indeed, demonstrated, 

 that in various places where openings have been made the Forest is renewing 

 itself. Mr. Buxton claimed no more than what is true when he said the Forest 

 in these parts is not only improved for future centuries, but is very beautiful as 

 it is." 



Emerging on the outskirts of the wood, felled timber was noticed again, lying 

 in an open space, caused by a forest fire, but which had been illustrated and 

 written about in the papers as a horrid example of reckless clearing. Mr. 

 Buxton said that here he thought the only thing to be done would be to tem- 

 porarily enclose the space from the cattle in order to give Nature a chance of 

 renewing the woodland from seedlings ; but if they did so he predicted that a cry 

 would then be raised in the papers that the Verderers were beginning to enclose 

 the Forest altogether ! He begged his hearers to remember his words for future 

 guidance. 



The ramble was continued until the " New Road " was reached, at a point 

 where the ugly, straight, and bare " Clay Ride," made by the enclosers, when it 

 was intended to rear in Monk Wood a settlement of modern villas, runs across 

 the Forest by "Sand-pit Plain" to Loughton." Here the carriages were resumed, 

 and as the time at the disposal of the meeting would not permit of the whole of 

 the programme being carried out, orders were given to the drivers to make for 

 Lodge or Lord's Bushes, Buckhurst Hill, which the Verderers very justly claim 

 as an example of the beneficial results of systematised thinning, in the wealth of 

 undergrowth and the healthy appearance of the trees. The place, Mr. Buxton 

 said, had been thinned four times since the wood had been under the control cf 

 the Epping Forest Committee, and as one proof of the virtue of the treatment he 

 pointed to the extraordinary luxuriance with which seedling birches were spring- 

 ing up wherever an opening had been made. 



In our own knowledge, from being, twenty y.ars ago, a dark, dismal place, 

 doomed to the clutches of the speculative builder, with an experimental tramway, 

 and a broad road (to be bordered with "eligible modern villas "), Lord's Bushes, 

 as now transformed, is one of the most beautiful and luxuriant woods in the Forest, 

 and this in spite of its nearness to a large village, and railway bringing down 

 crowds of excursionists and school children. 



Some of the company, including Sir J. Lubbock, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Andrew 

 Johnston, Mr. McKenzie, Mr. Ellis, and Prof. Fisher, had to leave before the 

 evening meeting, but the remainder of the party were driven to the Royal 

 Forest Hotel, at Chingford, where a refreshing high tea awaited them after the 

 fatigues of the aftei noon. 



2 One improvement most heartily to be desired and strongly recommended to the Conservators 

 would be the obliteration of this grievously ugly "ride." It should be ploughed up and planted, so 

 as to blot out for ever one of the most atrocious projects of vandalism ever conceived in detriment 

 of -A noble " open space." even in <hcse dark ages of Epping Forest History, before the dawn of 

 " The Judgment" of Sir George Jessell. — Ed. 



