10 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



master, that was the cause of the Ground Game Act, that has 

 lessened his employer's sport, exterminated hares on many 

 estates, and embittered the relations between tenants and 

 landlords. Now, it is a question of woods and game, and the 

 question will not be solved satisfactorily while the irresponsible 

 and often ignorant keeper has any authority in the matter. It 

 cannot be supposed that owners plant extensively in the 

 expectation of having their plantations destroyed, but they 

 trust too much to their keepers, to whose carelessness much of 

 the destruction of young plantations is due. The gamekeeper 

 of the past is behind the times, and is usually in conflict with 

 everyone else who has the general interests of his employer 

 and his estate at heart 



The subject came before the Select Committee on Forestry, 

 as it could not help doing in any enquiry of the kind. 

 Professor Elliott, of Cirencester Agricultural College, in his 

 evidence, dwelt on " the great drawback " to forestry in this 

 country by the present association of woods with game, and 

 Mr. McCorquodale, of Scone Palace, Perth, a forester factor of 

 long experience, did the same, explaining to the Committee 

 the extent of the ravages committed by rabbits to various 

 species of trees up to one hundred years of age. There is, 

 unfortunately, not the least doubt about the extent of the 

 destruction to woods by rabbits. Young plantations especially 

 are often quite destroyed, and always suffer more or less 

 according to the number of rabbits on the ground. This itself 

 amounts to serious loss, and when old trees are barked the 

 loss is still greater. Smooth-barked plantation trees of ash, 

 elm, sycamore, and beech suffer most When the trees are in 

 the pole stage they are often barked right round and die, and 

 have to be removed. Others are partly barked, and while 

 a strip of bark is left the tree lives, but the growth is checked, 

 and the loss of increment thereby to the trunk represents a 

 sensible loss in its value. The annual increment on a tree 

 represents the interest on its standing value, and this may 

 almost totally disappear in a tree crippled but not killed by 

 being barked at the base of the trunk. Such losses often 

 extend to thousands of cubic feet over large areas. Great 

 numbers of trees in this condition are to be seen in nearly all 

 woods, and the blank spaces usually represent trees that have 

 been killed outright and removed. Keepers are in the habit 

 of rubbing freshly barked trees over with soil and placing 

 sods over the wounds to prevent the damage being discovered, 

 but woodmen have been long acquainted with these tricks 

 and are not deceived. 



