Individual 7'recs and Masses of Wood. 17 



TLe beeches are even finer, and more characteristic, though 

 here and there a tree sometimes resembles the oaks, as if with 

 long living amongst them, it had learnt to gi-ow like them. The 

 finest beech-wood is that of Mark Ash. There you may see true 

 beech-forms, the boles spangled with silver scales of lichen, and 

 "the roots — more fangs than roots — grasping the earth, feathered 

 with the soft green down of moss. 



But not in individual trees lies the beauty of the Forest, but 

 in the masses of wood. There, in the long aisles, settles that 

 depth of shade which no pencil can give, and that colouring 

 which no canvas can retain, as the sunlight pierces through the 

 green web of leaves, flinging, as it sets, a crown of gold round 

 each tree-trunk. 



Let no one, however, think they know anything of the 

 Forest by simply keeping to the high road and the beaten tracks. 

 They must go into it, across the fern and the heather, and, if 

 necessary, over the swamps, into such old woods as Barrow's 

 Moor, Mark Ash, Bushey Bratley, and Oakley, wandering at 

 their own will among the trees. The best advice which I can 

 give to see the Forest is to follow the course of one of its 

 streams, to make it your friend and comj)anion, and go where- 

 ever it goes. It will be sure to take you through the greenest 

 valleys, and past the thickest woods, and under the largest trees. 

 No step along with it is ever lost, for it never goes out of its 

 way but in search of some fresh beauty. 



We see plenty of pictures in our Exhibitions from Burnham 

 Beeches or Epping Forest, but in the New Forest the artist ^^dll 

 find not only woodland, but sea, and moorland, and river \dews. 

 There are, as I have said, when taken in details, more beautiful 

 spots in England, but none so characteristic. Finer trees, 

 wilder moors, higher hills, more swiftly-flowing brooks, may 



D 17 



