FORESTRY IN KENT AND SUSSEX. 415 



per acre on land which could very easily carry a crop worth over 

 £200 per acre. 



There are some particularly fine timber trees in Kent and 

 Sussex, but there are not many of them in the woods. It is on 

 lawns and in pleasure-grounds, in fields, on roadsides, and in 

 hedgerows, that the finest specimens are to be seen, because, in 

 such situations, they are beyond the blighting influence of a 

 defective system of woodcraft, and can grow and flourish as 

 Nature intended that they should. Such trees strikingly demon- 

 strate, to those who have eyes to see, the great capabilities of the 

 soil, and the folly which prevents the multiplication of their 

 number. The prevalence of field and hedgerow timber in those 

 parts of the counties which the writer has visited, and the 

 undulating and picturesque configuration of the landscape, which 

 shows the trees to advantage, give the country an appearance of 

 being much more heavily wooded than it really is. This appear- 

 ance of density is favoured by another circumstance, namely, the 

 utilisation of conifers as landscape trees. Beautiful specimens of 

 the less hardy kinds are frequently to be met with growing openly 

 in the most exposed situations — convincing proof of the mildness 

 of the climate. 



Nearly all the soils that have come under the observation of 

 the writer in the counties of Kent and Sussex have been of the 

 nature of rich clayey loams. Everywhere he has found the soil 

 of sufficient quality and depth for the production of first-class 

 timber. Nowhere has he heard of land being let for agricultural 

 purposes at rents against which intelligent forestry could not 

 successfully compete. The poverty of the woods is neither due 

 to a barren soil nor to unfavourable climatic conditions. It is 

 their management that is at fault. 



At the annual dinner of the English Arboricultural Society, 

 held at Manchester in August 1900, the Lord Mayor of Man- 

 chester, who was the guest of the Society, after confessing to an 

 ignorance of matters arboricultural, suggested, in the course of a 

 clever and interesting speech, that arboriculturists might profit- 

 ably use chemical fertilisers to promote the growth of trees. 

 Replying to this suggestion later in the evening, Professor Fisher 

 said: "There were some remarks in the Lord Mayor's speech 

 which attracted my attention. His lordship spoke of the use of 

 fertilisers in agriculture, and suggested the possible use of such 

 things in the production of forest trees. In regard to that, I have 



