1 6 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



men that they may have both timber and game if they go the 

 right way to work. The German system of dense cropping 

 is being put into operation in the Crown forests and on 

 private estates. According to Dr. Adam Schwappach, pro- 

 fessor of forestry, Eberswald, Prussia, " the most extensive as 

 well as the most scientific system of forestry," according to 

 German notions, " is now being carried out in the large pine 

 forests belonging to the Countess of Seafield, in Scotland, 

 where game is also expected to abound ; and also in the Raith 

 forests, Fife, belonging to R. C. Munro Ferguson, Esq. With 

 regard to the latter, it has been publicly stated that ' the woods 

 are now to be worked with a view of profit, and that questions 

 of sport and aesthetic considerations would have to take a back 

 seat." In this chapter, however, we have suggested a plan of 

 laying out young dense woods and planting up old ones that 

 gets rid of the keeper's objections to density without sacrificing 

 the timber crop, and it will be apparent, we hope, to sportsmen, 

 that if a keeper cannot put up his game in such a covert it will 

 be his own fault A good rabbiter with two or three well- 

 drilled fox terriers could certainly accomplish the last 

 successfully. 



A diagram of a combined timber forest and game preserve, 

 showing how this covert may be formed, is given - towards the 

 end of this section. 



All that is needed in this country to insure heavy timber 

 crops and plenty of underwood or low bush cover is a slight 

 modification of the German forestry methods by which clumps 

 of coppice might be introduced here and there in small clear- 

 ings in conjunction with the rides and paths, and so laid out as 

 to admit sportsmen with the gun to every part of the wood. 

 When traversing great tracts of dense forest in the Hartz 

 Mountains and elsewhere in Germany, it occurred to the writer 

 that clearings might be introduced frequently where a great 

 variety of coppice bush (including a large number of species 

 that produce fruit freely, almost anywhere in Britain, and that 

 is greedily eaten by pheasants), might be grown in far greater 

 abundance than has yet been attempted, in a systematic way 

 in this country. Much expense is incurred on estates in pro- 

 viding artificial food, which is by no means so necessary as the 

 artificial breeder imagines who slings his bag or bucket of food 

 nearly every day in the year for birds that wait for his coming 

 like domestic fowls, without trying to find their natural food ; 

 whereas it is perfectly well known that the wild pheasant can 

 provide for itself all the year round, and has to do on some 



