VISIT TO THE FORESTS OF BAVARIA, 1909. 79 



tha.i o{ Q. pedunculata; the tree will thrive in poorer soil; and 

 it has less tendency to fork. 



The ordinary rotation for beech is 120 years, but in the 

 Spessart a number of picked trees are allowed to stand through 

 more than one rotation, so that boles are frequently met with 

 which it would be hard to match anywhere else. The two 

 largest which were measured were respectively 11 feet and 13 

 feet in girth. 



Oak trees, which are the final crop and the chief glory of the 

 Spessart, we were able to see in almost every stage, from the 

 young sapling, protected by a strong paling from the deer and 

 wild boars that frequent the forest, to the oak of 60 years, when 

 the underplanting with beech commences ; and so on to the 

 mature crop, the growth of several centuries. In more than one 

 compartment of the forest through which we passed, the oaks 

 were 300 and 400 years old, and had an average girth of g feet 

 at a height of 5 feet from the ground. The monarch of this 

 forest is reported to be 1000 years old, and is still a thriving tree 

 measuring 18^ feet in circumference. 



It is hardly possible to find words to describe the striking 

 effect of the woods in which we spent a large part of the after- 

 noon. The huge oaks are known to have been planted while 

 Germany was in the throes of the Thirty Years War; while the 

 beeches, sometimes scarcely inferior to the oaks in size, have an 

 average age of 200 years. Owing to the system of close canopy 

 under which the trees have always been grown, there is no 

 undergrowth of vegetation to obstruct the view. The eye 

 wanders unchecked through an endless vista of stately columns 

 rising straight out of the ground, the shafts being 60 to 80 feet 

 high before the lowest branches form their arches overhead, 

 while the summits of the trees often tower to a height of 150 feet 

 and more. It is safe to say that no forest like this, or approach- 

 ing to it, had ever been seen before by any of the members of 

 our expedition. 



