THE NEW FORESTRY. 149 



being past middle age. Uneven aged woods, as the term is 

 understood in Britain, consist of woods containing trees of 

 various ages that have been planted from time to time in 

 over-thinned woods approaching maturity, or trees from old 

 stools in woods from which timber has been removed. There 

 has been much aimless planting in this way, owing to the 

 absence of any definite system of clear cutting or rotation on 

 estates. Woods grow up till they have nearly reached 

 maturity, and are over-thinned and filled up again with young 

 trees. - Later another fall of timber of the older trees is 

 probably taken out of the wood, and the trees falling on the 

 later planted ones injure and destroy many, not to speak of the 

 damage done by haulage. This entails another beating up 

 to make good the blanks created, and so on till the end, if 

 that ever arrives. This is what may be called in England 

 an uneven aged wood, consisting generally of an indiscriminate 

 mixture of all ages, and usually forming as bad an example 

 of management as could be found. There would be less 

 objection to such woods if they were managed in a methodical 

 way. When a wood becomes so thin as to need partial 

 re-planting, the crops from the old stools should first be looked 

 to and encouraged, and the vacancies afterwards planted, but 

 in all such woods the fellings of the older timber should be at 

 long intervals, in order that the young trees may have time to 

 grow up, when the damage sustained in felling and hauling 

 will be less and the blanks sooner filled up by the growth of 

 the younger trees. In Germany the final cut is sometimes 

 delayed till after the ground has been re-planted or sown, 

 but the trees felled have such small tops and the young crop 

 is so dense that less damage is done than happens when trees 

 with broad spreading heads are felled over younger trees as is 

 done in British woods. 



Under-planting may be very usefully and profitably 

 adopted in thin old woods consisting of oak, ash, and elm, etc. 

 These do not bear shade, and are useless for under-planting 

 themselves, but beech, silver fir and spruce are good shade- 

 bearers, and may be used to under-plant with success care 

 being taken to plant not too close to the standing trees. 

 Under-planting is much practised on the Continent, where 

 we have seen it ; but the following extract from " The North 

 British Agriculturist " is interesting, as showing what is 

 done as far north as Sweden in that way in Govern- 

 ment woodlands : " These consist of oak and Scotch pine 

 chiefly. The oak is seventy years planted, and it has been 



