30 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
7. On Preparing Working-Plans for British 
Woodlands. 
By JoHN Nispet, D.(C&Ec. 
Without rendering oneself liable to a charge of being fanatically 
keen on regularity, order, method and management, one may 
perhaps venture to suggest that more of systematic and far- 
seeing future co-ordination of work than usually obtains might 
well be adopted in the treatment of the woodlands on large 
English estates, where the woods and plantations often aggregate 
between 500 and Iooo acres. 
Perhaps I may be wrong; but, from what I have understood 
from conversations with land-agents during the last few years, it 
seems now to be admitted that, from one cause or another—and, 
in fact, generally from a combination of causes—the woodlands 
must be regarded as perhaps not being worked to the best 
advantage. Many a land-agent knows quite well what ought to 
be done in the way of first steps to bring the woods and planta- 
tions into better order as income-producing portions of estates; 
and many more know that all is not so well as it ought to be— 
without, perhaps, being quite able to see clearly what had best 
be done with regard to the slow process of improvement. 
But in either case, however clear or however dubious may be 
the land-agent’s purview concerning the wooded portions of the 
estates in his charge, I think it is almost self-evident that the 
best first step to take is to formulate some carefully-thought- 
out plan for the systematic working of the woods during, say, 
the next ten years. It need not be any elaborate scheme of 
management—indeed, I will go further and say that, so long as 
it helps in achieving (even if only partially) the objects aimed at, 
the simpler and the less hampered with unnecessary details any 
such scheme of management is, the better will it be for practical 
use, the easier will it be understood by all concerned, the more 
likely is the forester to give it cordial support, and the easier 
can it be adhered to from year to year, when once it has been 
approved and brought into use. 
And who should draw up such a working-plan? Most certainly, 
the agent in charge of the estate—if he can find time to do so. 
There can be not the slightest doubt about that. He ought to 
1 Reprinted from the Yournal of the Land Agents’ Society, by permission of 
the Editor. 
