THE MANAGEMENT OF El'I'ING FOREST, 65 



Forest in all parts and at various seasons. (Signed) VV. SCHLICH, A. D. WEB- 

 STER, W. Robinson, James Anderson." 



Mr. Smith : I will withdraw it with pleasure ; I would not say anj^thing 

 offensive to anyone, but especially to Mr. Buxton, who has done more for the 

 Forest than any man living. We have been successful in putting off destruction 

 for one season : I hope we shall be successful in putting it off for ten seasons.** 



The President said that in consequence of the expression of opinion b}' the 

 preceding speakers he would put it to the meeting whether a resolution should be 

 put before them or not. On a vote being taken, it was in favour of a resolution 

 being submitted. 



Professor Boulger, in rising to move a resolution, as reference had been made 

 to opinions formerly expressed by him and also to cons'stency, said that he was 

 unaware whether the Conservators were at all solicitous as to a charge of incon- 

 sistency, but that for his part he was not. Few people had been more outspoken 

 in their comments on th2 action of the Conservators in the past than he had 

 himself, and he would frankly admit that his criticisms, unlike those of his friend. 

 Professor Meldola, had been directed not only against the threatened railway, but 

 also against various points of forest management. He had blamed the thinning 

 in the past as excessive as well as injudicious, but the result forced him to the 

 admission that he had to some extent been wrong ; in the case of Lord's Bushes, 

 for instance, entirely wrong. He had the less compunction in making this 

 admission because, like the Conservators, fourteen years ago he had no precedent 

 to go upon. He would be the last person to find serious fault with the drafting 

 of the Epping Forest Act by one whom they were all glad was now in the House of 

 Lords ; but, when that Act laid down that the natural condition of the Forest was 

 to be maintained, he ventured to submit that it enjoined an impossibility, since 

 ;here was no natural condition to maintain. The Conservators had the un- 

 speakably difficult task of regenerating a forest all but destroyed by the vandalism 

 of generations, and they had no precedents to guide them in their action. Such 

 action must, therefore, be very largely experimental, and it was also a process 

 demanding a considerable term of years. It was unreasonable to expect to see 

 the Forest made beautiful in a year or two, and at the same time to allow 

 lothing to be done to bring about such a result. He was far from endorsing all 

 .hat the Conservators had done or all the opinions they had expressed. He 

 differed from their friend, Mr. E. N. Buxton, for instance, as to the possibility 

 Df regenerating the Forest fjy what he might term successive nurses — thorn 

 springing up through heather, and forest trees through the thorn — as he did not 

 jelieve that thorn could grow from seed among heather, nor could any of their 

 rees do so except the birch. The thinning again may have been excessive in 

 lome places — he thought it had ; but of late years he had more and more 

 ;onfined his criticism — for the last three years entirely — to complaints as to the 

 njudicious selection of the trees felled. There were still many parts of the 

 forest where much more thinning was required and, though the sacrifice of so 

 nany fine young oaks was, no doubt, a painful necessity, a private examination 

 lad convinced him that even the much debated oaks in Bury Wood had been 

 ightly marked for felling. He had been very pleased to see that day what had 

 )een done in Great Monk Wood, with the'result of adding greatly to its beauty, 

 IS he had urged that action a good many years ago, and had been met by the 



8 Although both Mr. Lindley and Mr. Smith were applied to for corrected copies of their 

 peeches, no such copies have reached us. We therefore quote the reports in " The Essex Times," 

 • hich we presume these gentlemen consider to correctly represent the views they expressed. 

 -Ed. 



