GQ Sir John Stirling Maxwell [March 16, 



have shot ahead, encouragiiiu' the upward tendency of oak and Ijeech. 

 Two points required attention. The larch had to be lopped back 

 where it encroached on its neighbours, and it had to be removed, 

 altogether before it checked their growth. Part was removed two 

 years ago, the rest this year. It was sold for pitwood,and, having at 

 the present abnormally high prices realised £16 an acre ten years 

 from planting, it will suffice to defray the cost of making the 

 plantation. The oak and beech, already more vigorous than in 

 carelessly made plantations, will henceforth grow together, with 

 occasional thinnings, till the final felling, high forest of oak being 

 the objective, in which a certain proportion of beech will be retained 

 to carpet the floor with its rich fall of leaves. This example neatly 

 illustrates one feattn-e of forestry which is often forgotten. There is 

 no occupation in which it is so easy to squander labour, and none in 

 which a little labour applied at the right moment goes so far. It 

 was not enough to make this plantation after a good design. Had 

 either of the simple precautions I have mentioned been neglected, 

 the result would have been a poor larch wood instead of a promising 

 Avood of oak. 



We will take our next example from one of the Crown Woods. 

 These woods, after long years of neglect, now rind themselves once 

 more under energetic and skilful management, thanks mainly to the 

 foresight of the late Sir Stafford Howard. This photograph shows 

 how the Crown Foresters in the Forest of Dean seized the chance of 

 a good acorn year to restock an old wood without the expense of 

 replanting, removing the parent trees before their shade began to 

 injure the seedlings, and rigidly suppressing the hostile rabbit. How 

 simple, you say. Yes, very simple, when you know how it is done ; 

 and yet, if you ask me to show you another naturally regenerated 

 oak wood like this in Britain, I do not know where I should be 

 able to find . one. In France they may be seen wherever the oak is 

 grown. 



Even the period of neglect had good things to show now and 

 then. Here, for instance, in the Tintern Woods, purchased by the 

 Crown sixteen years ago, are larches planted as standards among oak 

 coppice. This was good forestry. The forester seized an opportunity. 

 A pure plantation of larch would not have produced stems so large 

 and so free from the omnipresent canker. Our next example is a 

 pure larch wood in the same forest, which has been left too long 

 untliinned. The foresters are here studying a knotty problem. 

 This wood, about fifty years old, is not full grown, but is worth a lot 

 of money as it stands. It cannot be left alone. The crowns of the 

 trees are so small that unless they are given room to expand they 

 cannot assimilate enough food to make any substantial increase to 

 their stems. A section of one of these trees would show annual 

 rings diminishing in thickness since the to|^ became too crowded. 

 After thinning, the annual rings of the remaining trees would quickly 



