22 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



proposed to create. The foregoing diagram looks formal on 

 paper, owing to the paths being straight, but the plan would 

 not look formal laid out in a wood. The diagram, however, 

 only shows the principle on which such a wood might be laid 

 out, and any wood, of whatever shape or size, may be treated 

 in the same way. The clumps may be large or small, few or 

 numerous, regular or irregular, but the fewer the better for the 

 timber crop. There might be one clump of covert, of a rood or 

 more in extent, to every twenty acres of timber or thereabouts, 

 and the wood is supposed to be shot over lengthways. In short 

 the wood is simply thrown into blocks of timber that beaters 

 and dogs can easily work, and the ovals are clearings with low 

 berry-bearing and other bushes, where the guns can be posted 

 as desired. Although the paths are more numerous than are 

 needed in a wood, they will not seriously affect the density of 

 the crop, provided the margins of the blocks are kept close. 

 Since the first edition of this book was written, I have had 

 many conversations with gentlemen on this subject, who have 

 assured me that if the necessary density for the production of 

 timber could be secured in blocks of moderate size, the same as 

 in large areas, every objection would be removed to dense 

 woods so far as shooting was concerned, as better sport was 

 had with the gun in open glades and fields adjoining woods 

 than in narrow rides cut through them, such as are often seen. 

 In addition to the drives, narrow footpaths, about one yard 

 wide, and winding, may be made every ten or twelve yards 

 apart to admit beaters. These paths we have made in very 

 dense plantations, not by removing any trees, but by nipping 

 off the lower branches, or a portion of them, up to a man's 

 height or a little higher. In plantations arranged in this way 

 all objections to density are removed. 



SECTION IV. ARTIFICIAL SYSTEM OF REARING 

 PHEASANTS. 



This is the only part of the keeper's business that the 

 forester is not quite familiar with, and which it is proposed to 

 abolish for reasons that will be given, and because it is, next to 

 the rabbit scourge, a branch of the keeper's business that 

 hinders the work in the woods more than anything else, con- 

 ducted as at present. It is, however, a business he may soon 

 learn to conduct with as much success as it is conducted at 

 present at least, and as will be shown ; for if anything 



