THE NEW FORESTRY. 77 



suffer worst ; whereas, if the case was stated fairly, it is a fact 

 that nowhere in Europe are the woods so severely thinned as 

 in Scotland, and if they do suffer more severely from gales it 

 is a fair conclusion that over-thinning is the main cause of it. 

 We have visited frequently the worst gale- devastated districts 

 in the south and north of Scotland, and our impression was 

 that the most destruction occurred in middle-aged and older 

 woods in which the trees were thin on the ground, the over- 

 head canopy nil, and the margins open. The worst windfalls 

 seemed to occur in woods with unprotected margins, near to 

 highways and railways, where the wind found an entrance. 

 In other instances the gale seemed to have behaved in the 

 most erratic manner, sometimes making a clear gap in one part 

 of a plantation and missing higher and more exposed parts 

 of it altogether. 



Another erroneous impression is that German forests exist 

 in a comparatively windless region, otherwise the dense system 

 of timber-culture could not be practised. The answer to this 

 is that Germany is not the only country where the dense 

 system of culture is pursued. Norway and Sweden are worse 

 situated than Scotland as regards gales and climate generally, 

 and yet owners there do not thin their forests at all, and send 

 us the best samples of timber that comes to this country from 

 north Europe. Moreover, Central Germany is not windless, 

 nor are forest windfalls unknown there, but, on the contrary, 

 they make serious inroads in the forests as with us, not to 

 speak of destructive snowbreaks of which we know practically 

 nothing in this country. According to Schlich, vol. iii., p. 366, 

 in certain sections of the Black Forest, from which example 

 results are given, the percentage of total fellings include 

 twelve per cent from snowbreaks, and sixteen per cent from 

 windfalls, which per centage is described as " fairly moderate." 

 At pages 383-4, a sample page of a working plan and detailed 

 control book is given, in which such entries as " excess due to 

 windfalls " and heavy windfalls occur frequently. Professor 

 Schlich, who was one of the most reliable witnesses that 

 appeared before the Select Committee on Forestry, was asked 

 by the examiners to give an instance of destruction by gales 

 in Germany equal to that recorded as occurring on the Duke of 

 Buccleuch's estates in Scotland, where, in two successive gales, 

 1,250,000 trees went down; and the answer to the question 

 was that in the Bavarian Forest, in 1870, a gale "threw down 

 so much timber that, in spite of the efforts of the officers in 

 charge, all the available labour had not removed all the timber 



