176 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



24. Notes of Silvicultural Interest. 



By Thomas Hall. 



Overthinning of Woods. — The much-discussed method of 

 raising forest crops by natural regeneration or direct sowing 

 can hardly be called practicable in this country under existing 

 circumstances, owing to the fact that most private estates are 

 overrun by game, and more especially by the kinds most 

 injurious to young forest crops, such as rabbits and hares. 



It is easy to understand, under such circumstances, why woods 

 are so much thinned and never underplanted with forest trees, 

 as even the undercover usually planted in a game preserve, 

 such as privet, laurel, and rhododendron, will not thrive under 

 a really close canopy, such as would be formed by a crop of 

 timber grown on purely silvicultural lines. 



That undercover of this kind could be largely dispensed with 

 in our game preserves has not as yet been realised by the 

 majority of landed proprietors or their agents, who go on from 

 year to year cutting down trees which in all probability would 

 not have reached their highest value for the next fifty years, 

 under the pretence, perhaps, that the timber is required for 

 estate purposes, but in reality to save the undercover from 

 being exterminated. The forester, even though he be of the 

 new school, has to submit to the inevitable, the keeper's advice 

 being generally considered of more value than his where game 

 is preserved on an estate. 



Underplanting Game Covers with Forest Trees. — Highwoods 

 are rarely underplanted in this country, owing principally to the 

 expense which would be entailed by the enclosing of woods of 

 large extent with a fence sufficient to protect them until they 

 would be safe from the attacks of ground game. A simple 

 plan whereby this expense may be greatly reduced, may there- 

 fore prove of interest to many who contemplate such an 

 undertaking. 



We will suppose that a wood of 8 or 10 acres, composed 

 principally of oak, and about seventy years old, has become 

 bare at the bottom and useless as a game cover, and it is 

 only the expense of protecting the whole area which hinders 

 its underplanting. 



The underplanting of the whole area may, however, be success- 



