214 



REPORT OF JUDGES ON PLANTATIONS 

 AND HOME NURSERIES COMPETITION, 



1912. 



In order that competitors and others should, while interest 

 was still keen, be placed in possession of detailed information 

 with regard to the points that led the Judges to arrive at their 

 decisions, permission was given to publish a Report in the July 

 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Forestry. In that Report the 

 various classes were taken up seriatim, and the character of the 

 exhibits was discussed in detail. It would seem undesirable 

 that the same formal treatment should be adopted for the 

 present purpose, it being considered more useful to call atten- 

 tion to the outstanding features of Yorkshire forestry as brought 

 to the Judges' notice on the occasion of their inspection in the 

 month of June. In another part of this issue (pages Ixxxvi 

 and Ixxxvii) a record of the awards will be found. 



During our examination of the woods presented for our 

 inspection we were occasionally impressed with the compara- 

 tively successful results that were being obtained under 

 unfavourable conditions, such as high altitude, severe exposure, 

 or unfavourable soil. At first we were inclined to think that in 

 making the awards we should take these considerations into 

 account, that is to say, it at first sight appeared to be not un- 

 reasonable to put an intrinsically inferior exhibit before another 

 in the prize list, when the former was comparatively successful 

 in the face of serious obstacles, even if the latter was showing a 

 greater volume and value of timber attained in a given time. A 

 man might be deserving of much more credit in attaining mode- 

 rate success in the face of unusual difiiculties than another man 

 who had obtained a larger measure of success with everything 

 in his favour. But if we ever seriously contemplated giving 

 effect to this idea we abandoned it at an early stage, having in 

 mind the method followed in awarding the prizes of the Society 

 for live stock. When a number of animals are placed before 

 the Judges the latter take no account of the ownership or origin 

 of the animals. It may be that some of the animals belong to 

 small tenant farmers who have obtained creditable results in 

 face of insufiBcient capital, unsatisfactory buildings, an inclement 

 climate, or poor land ; whereas other animals may be owned by 

 men who have been able to command every factor making for 

 success. But the Judges take account only of the merit of the 

 individual animals submitted, and pay no attention to the 

 circumstances under which they have been produced. Following 

 this line also we have judged the plantations without regard to 

 extraneous circumstances. 



