182 FIRST BOOK OF FORESTRY 



protected wolves of our forest, are free to chase the game 

 day and night, as, for instance, in many parts of the South 

 and West, it is impossible for deer to maintain themselves. 



THE BUSINESS OF THE FOREST 



When a farmer carries on forestry on his thirty-acre 

 piece of woodland he looks after it himself, plans and 

 conducts the cutting, planting, and thinning, sells the 

 wood, and thus performs all parts of this business, just as 

 he does his farming. He may hire some men, he may 

 even keep a book to see just how much his piece of wood- 

 land is bringing in, but it is a very simple kind of record. 

 In the same way his plans are perfectly simple. He may 

 manage it all as a piece of selection woods, cutting over 

 a three-acre piece each year, using the same road to haul 

 out his wood, or he may treat it as a coppice ; but, in any 

 case, he needs no map or book to see where the oldest 

 timber is located, and what parts are in need of thinning. 

 Half an hour's walk will show all this, and a few hours' 

 time will suffice to mark out all the trees he wishes to 

 take out the coming winter. 



Suppose, however, he has two thousand acres of woods 

 in four pieces, thirty miles from his home ; then the case 

 is quite different. It would take a month's faithful walk- 

 ing to examine this amount of land as a good forest 

 should be examined. Moreover, he needs to note down 



