MR H, C. HILL ON THE FOREST OF DEAN. 293 
Mr Hill writes that it ‘‘may be described as a periodic thinning 
out of the oak overwood, with which was combined the removal 
of larch and pines, and the cutting over of the underwood. From 
this latter, oaks and larch, and in recent years ash, cherry, and 
even a few beeches have been stored as standards, At the same 
time, oaks and larch have been freely planted in open spaces. 
“The operations, however, have not been carried out over 
regular annual felling areas in any regular succession, nor do 
they seem to have been governed by any fixed rotation. It was 
considered desirable to cut over the underwood when the planted 
oaks were in danger of being smothered by it, and the thinning 
out of the oaks in the overwood was most conservatively limited 
to the removal of only unsound or over-mature trees, with the 
result that the best parts appear as high forest of old and middle- 
aged oaks over a coppiced underwood, poor in composition and 
growth, while elsewhere the overwood has been more freely cut, 
and the coppice is vigorous and well intermixed with seedlings 
of ash and oak, or planted oaks and larches. 
“There has been an absence of a definite and clear method 
of treatment by which the development of the overwood or the 
coppice, as the case might be, would be the object aimed at either 
entirely or within certain limits. The operations have not gone 
on with regularity from year to year, or been carried out on the 
ground with order and sequence, with the results that the markets 
have been unevenly supplied, and the growing stock has been 
made irregular, to the detriment of its greatest production and 
most economical utilisation.” 
The ojbect of future management is thus set forth :—‘ With 
the demand for cordwood practically gone, and the capability of 
the woods to produce fine timber, it is considered that the aim 
in view should be the production of timber in greatest quantity 
of the kind and quality commanding highest prices. This object 
can best be attained by a high forest treatment, and the conver- 
sion of the woods from their present more or less ‘ coppice-with- 
standard’ condition into ‘high forest’ has to be considered. 
It has been said that while two-thirds of the area consist of old, 
well-stocked woods, the remaining one-third is composed of in- 
complete oak plantations, aged from forty-seven to seventy-two 
years, with an underwood of hazel. While the original woods 
can be readily converted, the plantations are ill-suited for con- 
version to high forest, and since they are found chiefly grouped 
