] 96 THE SELF-SOWN OAK WOODS OF SUSSEX. 



last cutting of the underwood, that is, ten years previously. In 

 thinning tellars and young trees, it is of the utmost importance that 

 the leading trees should he left, and the inferior ones cut. For the 

 ultimate crop the trees should stand from 20 to 30 feet apart. The 

 great aim of every forester should he to keep the trees thick enough 

 to draw each other up to the height required, so as to have a clear 

 stem of from 20 to 40 feet, as the case may he, and so to gradually 

 thin them as not to ahruptly admit the wind, and thus cause them 

 to be checked in growth. Any checking of growth is speedily 

 detected hy the throwing out of a quantity of "rushy" houghs, as 

 they are called. "We have now carried our wood up to the age of 

 from seventy to eighty years. If the trees have heen properly 

 managed, little further thinning will he required until their clearing, 

 unless the timber is left for a longer period than 100 years for large 

 shipbuildings. After a wood has been cleared of a natural crop of 

 oak, and the underwood has grown for a period of ten years, it will 

 generally be found, at the next cutting, that a good crop of self- 

 sown oak tellars is fairly scattered over the ground. The tellars 

 are usually marked with paint, and are excepted from sale. At this 

 first cutting the young oak trees will be about the same height as 

 the underwood; and, if the underwood is fairly good, the chances 

 are that it will be unnecessary to thin the tellars at all, more than 

 hy a woodman going round and chopping down with a hatchet any 

 inferior trees. During the next five or six cuttings the real work of 

 thinning must be executed. 



Profits. — I now come to the question of profit, whether timber or 

 underwood pays best, taking a certain period of time, say 100 years. 

 Assume an acre of underwood of a fair average description in Kent, 

 Surrey, or Sussex, no oak trees being allowed to be grown upon it, 

 hut kept entirely for underwood. I will suppose that it has a good 

 set of stems upon it. This underwood is worth, to sell, upon an 

 average of L.10 per acre at ten years' growth; and it may be assumed, 

 for the purpose of rental value, that underwood selling for L.10 or 

 L.12 per acre, is worth the same number of shillings rent; this will 

 be found a close approximation if worked out. This acre of wood- 

 land will therefore produce a rent of 10s. per annum, and go on 

 producing the same description of underwood for the 1 00 years with 

 occasional filling up. Take, secondly, an acre of woodland under similar 

 conditions with regard to underwood, but allow tellars to grow upon 

 it; there will he found little or no difference in the value of the under- 

 wood for the first twenty years. During the next forty years the 



