BRITISH FORESTRY AND ITS FUTURE PROSPECTS. 177 



of landowners towards Forestry is undoubtedly connected with 

 sporting considerations. Those, however, who know the sport 

 afforded by wild boar, stags, roedeer, and smaller game in the 

 great Continental forests, and of good mixed shooting near the 

 edges of the forest, will be well aware that the most scientific 

 Forestry is by no means incompatible with the highest forms of 

 true sport. Thus, for example, well-managed copsewoods give 

 good pheasant-shooting. But economic management of wood- 

 lands is certainly incompatible with such a state of affairs as 

 exists in many of the woods, where rabbits are permitted to 

 multiply to such an extent that they cause wholesale destruction 

 to the coppice in copsewoods, rendering natural regeneration all 

 but impossible, killing even large trees by gnawing away their 

 bark, and making the formation of new plantations a practical 

 impossibility without considerable expense being incurred in the 

 erection and maintenance of wire fencing. It is questionable if 

 many landowners have ever calculated in cold blood, and without 

 any sort of prejudice or preference, the true debit and credit of 

 their rabbit account. It would be interesting to know how 

 much their rabbits cost some of them each year in loss of income 

 from, and damage to, woodlands, and in expenditure for wire 

 fencing. If this calculation be made, and the landowners still 

 prefer swarms of rabbits to well-stocked woodlands, then the 

 future prospects of Forestry in many parts of Britain are poor 

 indeed ; but otherwise, so far as the future prices obtainable for 

 timber can be forecast, these prospects are now far brighter than 

 they have been for many years in the past. 



