416 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



to say that the real fertilisers are the dead leaves which fall from 

 the trees. If you grow your trees dense enough and have plenty 

 of dead leaves, they want no fertilisers at all, and that is the 

 great point we have to do with in arboriculture. The agricul- 

 turist has to buy manure at a great cost, and supply it constantly 

 to the land, whereas, if arboriculturists grew their forests suffi- 

 ciently dense, the trees would supply their own manure." 



We can imagine with what dismay the eloquent Lord Mayor 

 and the popular professor would learn that in many of the woods 

 in Kent and Sussex, not only the dead leaves, but every bit of 

 herbage and vegetable undei'growth, is carefully raked together 

 and carted away to make litter, which, after it has been well 

 rotted in the cattle-sheds, is utilised as manure for the hop- 

 gardens. The trees are expected to grow without the aid of any 

 fertiliser, either natural or artificial. The writer cannot speak 

 from experience of other southern counties, but he has been 

 informed by natives of Hampshire that the same practice is 

 carried out in some districts of that county. 



A detailed description of the principal operations of southern 

 woodcraft, if not instructive, will probably be interesting to 

 northern foresters. We will take the case of the average wood 

 already referred to. At some remote period it has been surveyed 

 and divided into blocks, locally termed "cants," varying generally 

 from two to three acres in extent. The dividing line between 

 these " cants " is generally a narrow, shallow ditch, and not 

 unfrequently these dividing lines are all that a wood can show in 

 the way of a drainage system. The rotation for the underwood 

 and coppice is from ten to twelve years, and on most estates it is 

 sold as a standing crop to be cleared by the purchaser. Previous 

 to a wood sale, the forester, or wood-reeve as he is locally termed, 

 goes through the "cants" that are to be sold, and marks with a 

 daub of paint a young oak here and there to indicate that they 

 are to be left as standards. As a rule he is very sparing with his 

 paint, and does not mark more than a tenth part of the standards 

 that should be reserved. The immediate object he has in view is 

 to get as high a price as possible for each " cant " of wood, and 

 as they are sold by auction, he know3 that a lavish display of 

 red paint would have an unfavourable effect upon the bidding. 

 The result very often leaves a doubt as to whether not only his 

 paint but his time has not been wasted. The few isolated 

 standards he may consider worthy of decoration with his paint- 



