240 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



adopt the Continental style in its entirety will end more or less 

 in failure." 



The author holds definite views regarding the present 

 condition of English forestry, and the same may be said of his 

 views regarding the men who have to carry it into practice. He 

 goes on to point out that English forestry, as practised at the 

 present day, is made up of samples of sylviculture, arboriculture, 

 and landscape gardening ; and it might be added that it is just 

 this mixed character of English estate forestry which necessitates 

 a good all-round training on the part of the forester. 



Mr Forbes manages to reconcile game preserving and forestry 

 fairly well, but he does not point out with sufficient clearness that 

 well-managed woods, when young, are the best of all game 

 coverts, and that, if woods were grown on a rotation of, say 

 one hundred years, one-half, by judicious arrangement of the 

 respective age classes, would afford suitable cover and give good 

 shooting. 



One of the most valuable chapters of the book is that dealing 

 with Thinning and Pruning. The author blames Brown for 

 attending too much to the requirements of individual trees 

 rather than to the plantation as a whole, and the badly- 

 o-rown woods in England at the present day he ascribes chiefly 

 to : — " I St, The sylvicultural requirements of oak suitable for 

 the navy ; 2nd, the influence of Scotch foresters and Scotch 

 forestry upon English wood-management ; 3rd, the influence 

 upon British forestry exercised by the extensive planting of 

 larch ; and 4th, the influence of intensive game-preserving in 

 plantations." 



• It may be pointed out that Mr Forbes is rather severe on the 

 Scots, as compared with the English, forester, but he wishes to 

 establish his premiss that Scots forestry is different from 

 English. It is rather an insult to Scots intelligence, however, 

 to say, as Mr Forbes does, that Scotsmen are generally sup- 

 posed to imbibe the art of forestry with their mother's milk. 



Regarding valuation, we do not agree with the author when 

 he says that " guessing " the cubic contents of a standing tree is 

 " idle brag." An illiterate woodman will sometimes estimate 

 the cubic contents of a standing tree with amazing accuracy, and 

 both wood merchants and practical foresters are often quite 

 expert in the art. 



Some attention is given to the home nursery, and the protection 



