IIO THE COMING OF AGE OF 



the Forest district, all expressing approval of the action of the 

 Conservators. The two memorials were presented by me at a 

 meeting of the Epping Forest Committee on May loth, 1895, 

 the deputation having been introduced by Mr. Andrew Johnston, 

 and having consisted of several representatives of the Club in 

 addition to Mr. Joslin, the High Sheriff of Essex, and Sir Robert 

 Hunter. The outcome of this second agitation was the appoint- 

 ment by the Corporation of a second Commission of inquiry by 

 the same experts, and their report was presented in November, 

 1895. This second report practically endorses their first, and 

 has convinced the public that no danger need be apprehended 

 from the action of the Conservators. The memorials and the 

 final report of the experts will be found in the Essex Natural- 

 ist (IX., 74 -80) and in the same volume Mr. Edward North 

 Buxton published his views concerning the principles governing 

 the management of the woodland in the Forest (pp. 233-— 236). 

 On many occasions since the decisive meeting of 1894 have we 

 given our members opportunities of seeing for themselves the 

 actual results of the judicious attempts of the Conservators to 

 naturalise that tract of most unnaturally pollarded woodland 

 which was committed to their care by the Epping Forest Act of 

 1878. That their policy was sound and that their efforts have 

 been and are being crowned with all the success that can be 

 reasonably expected is amply justified by the present condition 

 of the Forest. There remains much to be done to insure its 

 perpetuation as a forest for the generations to come, since there 

 are still very serious dangers threatening the growth of the new 

 vegetation from which is to be developed the forest of the 

 future. But this address deals rather with the past than with 

 the future, and any expression of opinion concerning methods 

 that may yet have to be adopted would be out of place on the 

 present occasion. 



In one other respect since the dedication of the Forest in 

 1882 have we reason to rejoice in the association of the Buxtons 

 with that district. In that year some twelve acres of land known 

 as the Oakhill Enclosure on the Theydon Road were threatened 

 by the builder, and attention was called to this danger by our 

 Secretary {Pvoc. III., xi.) In May, i88g the Lord Mayor of 

 London, at a diiniLn- of the Epping Forest Committee, read a 

 letter from Sir T. Fowell Buxton which practically amounted to 

 an anouncemeut tiiat he and his brother, Mr. E. N. Buxton, has 



