THE NEW FORESTRY. 



Perhaps the safest plan for the forester is to act in practice on 

 Dr. Lindley's opinions, and collect seeds from healthy subjects 

 only. 



SECTION II. FOUR-FOOTED ENEMIES OF FOREST 

 TREES. 



These include rabbits, hares, squirrels, mice, and deer, and it 

 may be taken for granted that these animals damage and des- 

 troy all forest trees more or less if they have the chance, and 

 the only means of preventing their ravages is to destroy them 

 or shut them out of plantations. Rabbits bark both young and 

 old trees to a destructive extent. Hares nibble the shoots and 

 leaders of young trees, especially of the larch. Deer bark trees 

 and also injure them with their horns. \Vhere squirrels 

 abound they do almost as much harm as rabbits by nibbling 

 the buds and shoots. The proprietor of one Highland estate 

 writes us that he had lost thousands of pounds through their 

 depredations although he killed hundreds every year. Voles 

 and mice gnaw the bark like rabbits, but their ravages can be 

 told by their teeth marks and by their usually attacking young 

 trees close to the soil under the grass, while rabbits usually eat 

 above the grass. In hard weather mice also climb trees and 

 eat the bark on the branches and small twigs. There is one 

 thing connected with the attacks of rabbits upon young trees 

 that woodmen have often noticed, viz., that planted trees are 

 more frequently attacked and more severely injured than trees 

 that spring up naturally from seed. This we have noticed 

 often, especially in reference to the sycamore and ash. Patches 

 and single trees of these spring up naturally and escape, but 

 fill up the vacant patches in the same wood with the same 

 species, and the chances are they will be destroyed if the 

 rabbits are there. We have known such cases often, and 

 could point to nice groups of self-sown sycamore, of consider- 

 able extent, twenty years of age and upwards, that have 

 never been seriously injured, where scarcely a planted tree in 

 the same wood escaped. We cannot explain the fact, but 

 probably the rankness with which seedlings spring up may 

 have something to do with it, for there can be no doubt that 

 when thick planting is resorted to, and two or three plants 

 are put into each hole, the crop suffers less from rabbits. 

 Sheep bark some kinds of trees very badly, and also eat the 

 leaves and shoots of many species indiscriminately. Cattle 



