1917] on Scientific Forestry for the United Kingdom 67 



expand, the value of the wood increasing every year with their 

 diameter. Now in thinning a wood Uke this there is grave risk 

 from wind, and it is a ni:e question whether it would be wiser to fell 

 the whole thing now and realise the present value, or thin it in the 

 hope that the remaining trees will maintain their footing and grow 

 into heavy timber. The decision will depend on many things besides 

 the condition of the wood itself. A forest must give a regular yield 

 of timber year by year^ and must therefore contain woods of all ages. 

 At Tintern woods of this age are scarce, and the Crown Foresters are 

 anxious to preserve this one if they can. They are leaving nothing to 

 chance. You see them in this photograph examining a sample block, 

 every tree in which is numbered, entered in a book and measured at 

 regular intervals. They are trying various methods of thinning in 

 various plots, and they know to a square foot what increment each 

 is producing. Twenty years hence there will be some noble stems 

 here provided the wind spares them. You will hear people say that 

 we are more subject to wind than our Continental neighbours ; I do 

 not think this is true. The Continental foresters take care to guard 

 against the dangerous winds, and all their plantings and fellings are 

 designed with this object. AVhen these plans are disturbed the wind 

 makes havoc. In the Eberswald, near Munich, a few years ago great 

 stretches of the forest were destroyed by the nun moth, and had to be 

 felled out of their order. The wind found entrance, and 2000 acres 

 were laid flat in the gales of the succeeding winter. 



I pass now for a concluding example to quite another type of 

 work — the planting of waste land — and ask you to accompany me to 

 a loch in Inverness-shire 1270 feet above sea-level, and close to the 

 watershed of Scotland on its western side. Here, in plantations 

 begun twenty years ago, we may learn something about the limits to 

 which afforestation can be carried. In order to secure tlie forest 

 area required with the least disturbance to other interests, it will, as 

 a rule, be necessary to devote whole subjects to afforestation, that is 

 to say, whole sheep farms, deer forests, or whatever the subject may 

 be. No one proposes to plant arable land, but any such land attached 

 to the forest subjects will be required to provide holdings for the 

 forest workers. Even if the most suitable subjects are chosen, the 

 whole area will seldom be of equal value, and it is important that the 

 high and poor ground should not be wasted if, by taking pains, it 

 can be made to grow good timber. The ground in this case was poor 

 glacial drift covered with peat, in which were imbedded the roots of 

 vanished forests of Scots pine. The only surviving trees were birch, 

 mountain ash, black alder and bird cherry, with a few willows, all 

 sadly distorted by snow. The new plantations were made with good 

 advice, or rather, with advice which would have been good elsewhere. 

 Here it was not good, because it had not correctly gauged the problem 

 to be solved. Xo one doubted that the Scots pine was the best t'-ee 

 to plant. Accordinglv it formed the matrix of the plantations, larch 



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