THINNINGS. 113 



or equation by which one can determine the number of stems to 

 remove, or lay down which they are. This has to be done 

 through knowledge of the various species, their temperament, 

 exigencies, faculties, mutual relations, etc. But I think this 

 is enough. I have known men who did not know x from y, 

 forest guards even, who, having grasped the idea, could act on it 

 and do very respectable work indeed in their own forest, their 

 own beats. One of the most remarkable of these was brave old 

 Antoine Gautherot, of Saint Broing, near Gray. He was a wood- 

 man who became a guai'd in a private forest. He had never left 

 the woods of La Vaivre, which surround the ancient abbey of 

 Corneux. In winter he could not tell Salix alba from Salix 

 fragilis, but how well he knew the oak and the ash, the red elm 

 with its two homonyms white and diffuse (though he knew not 

 the name of the latter), and the alder, the aspen, the hazel, and 

 the rest. He lived among them, his life was of theirs, he felt 

 their difficulties, and did exactly what was needed. That is 

 no trifle, I assure you. 



The operation of thinning thus may be, nay always is, danger- 

 ous; the greatest danger is that of interrupting the canopy, and 

 it must be carefully avoided, notwithstanding the temptation to 

 make a nice open crop. After what I have said about pushing 

 the thinning of Q. pedunculata to the state of isolation, I hope 

 to escape being called an advocate of complete canopies at all 

 costs ; but how necessary the complete canopy is ! What good 

 are isolated conifers 1 Good to be cleared off at once ! What 

 future has a high forest of beech if opened so much that several 

 years must pass before the canopy is re-formed. It is the future 

 of a crop well on in regeneration fellings. Even Q. Robur itself 

 may be made to suffer, in the soil and in the air, to the extent 

 of imperilling the future of the crop. Complete canopy is the 

 natural state of forests ; let us improve upon it only in showing 

 proper regard for it. 



Another great danger in thinning lies in the removal of the 

 finest trees, be they silver firs or oaks, larches or beeches, pines 

 or others, under some pretext or other. Crops so treated consist 

 of a languishing residuum of unprofitable, feebly-growing stems, 

 mostly of useless species, with a plentiful sprinkling of blanks 

 which will not fill up. Concoctors of disastrous theories should 

 be handed over to the hangman, and that without appeal, unless 

 to the owners whose forests they have handled. If these latter 



