ForRESTRY. 116! 
graphs showing a forest of sessile-flowered oaks in France through 
all its stages. 
A QUESTION OF FOREST MANAGEMENT. 
Now that we want straight, clean timber, there is no country 
in the world better able to produce it than our own. “ Ah, but,”’ 
says the timber merchant, “ your firs are grown too fast. British 
deal cannot compare with Scandinavian, which is grown much 
slower.’? ‘True, but here again the evil comes from over-thin- 
ning. Grow your trees in close forest, and no matter what height 
they attain, or how soon they attain it, the annual rings will be 
close together, and the timber will be slow grown. It is a mere 
question of forest management. ‘Trees in open order will pro- 
duce branches and coarse timber, with wide annual rings; trees 
grown in close forest will yield clean planks, with close annual 
rings. Here are some examples from a wood of Mr Elwes’ at 
Colesborne, in Gloucestershire. Most of these trees measure 
125 feet in height, and compare favourably in cleanness of bole 
with the following examples from Savoy. Silver fir with a few 
spruce, and silver fir with a larch or two. 
It is idle to say that timber cannot be grown at a handsome 
profit in Great Britain, but it is equally idle to attempt to grow it 
at a profit unless sound principles of commercial forestry are 
adopted. 
WHAT PRIVATE OwNnERS Micut Do. 
I now come to the other branch of my subject-—the condition 
of woodland or private estates in this country. In dealing with 
that, I must be understood to generalise. I could name certain 
properties on which the principles of sound forestry are in full 
practice, and of which the proceeds of the woods contribute a 
considerable part of the revenue. But taking one estate with 
another, I shall not be accused of exaggeration if I describe the 
woods as run upon amateur lines, more or less modified by local 
custom. It is not the custom to expect a land agent to have had 
any training in economic forestry ; still less likely is it that the 
owner himself shall have had such training. It would be natural, 
then, that neither the agent nor his employer should attempt to 
interfere with the management of the woods. But what land- 
owner is there so poor in spirit that he does not aspire to direct 
in person the operations in his woods. He has a forester or 
