REPORT ON A VISIT TO SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH FORESTS. 205 
The history of that noble park has been published in a splendid 
volume by the late Surveyor; but the history of Windsor is, so to 
say, a repetition of the history of England herself. If we follow all 
the phases in the development of this park, where, since the time 
of William the Conqueror, each sovereign in turn has given his 
name to some remarkable tree, Windsor Park may with justice be 
called the Westminster Abbey of British monumental trees ; its 
history is one which belongs as much to archeology as it does to 
sylviculture, while in it the beautiful deer are almost as numerous 
as the trees themselves. 
Nevertheless, the practical forester may rest assured that, although 
the first place is here given to art and beauty, he will still be able 
to find much to interest and instruct him. Windsor Park is indeed 
one of the most magnificent fields for the study of forest botany 
that even the wildest imagination could conjure up. Here may be 
seen, growing singly or collectively in clumps, specimens of all the 
finest trees, native or exotic, which exist in Great Britain ; and, 
since care has been taken to keep an exact record of the age and 
origin of each plantation, the forester would be enabled to follow 
out in detail studies of the highest interest and importance regard- 
ing the growth of the principal forest species. It would be more 
ditticult to do the same with regard to their longevity ; for one is 
led to think, in looking at some of them, that in this hallowed 
ground trees never die of old age. One sees in these relics of the 
past that religious respect for things so characteristic of Englishmen, 
when even the most violent revolutions could pass over the country, 
and yet leave these monuments and these trees intact. 
The Surveyor of Windsor Park, who is by turn a forest officer, 
an organiser of shooting parties, a director of the royal workshops, 
and conservator of a museum of antiquities, can, in consequence, 
have but little time to devote himself to sylviculture, unless it be to 
prepare the iron armour intended to preserve the veterans of the 
forest in their struggle against the elements, or to prop up with 
crutches some invalid deprived of a limb by a recent gale. 
Having come all the way from Scotland to Windsor, we were not 
to be alarmed by the journey from there to the New Forest, for a 
few hours sufficed to carry us to Southampton. 
New Forest.—As old as Windsor Park itself, the New Forest has 
not had the good fortune to be the dependence of a royal residence. 
The barrenness and poverty of the soil has sufficed to preserve it 
from being plundered even at an epoch when land was valued more 
