i 9 2 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



hardwood, such as oak, beech, ash, etc., and at 2d. per 

 bushel will earn, together with his assistant, from 3 to 

 5 per week. Such charcoal, which is made with a minimum 

 of waste, will have a sharp metallic ring when struck, and 

 show absolutely no trace of combustion beyond its colour. 

 We have specimens of charcoal in our possession which show 

 the bark and moss intact on the wood, and even the larval 

 dust of the workings of Hylesinus fraxini, together with the 

 beetles themselves, are as perfect as when the former were 

 fresh and the latter still alive. Charcoal of this description 

 is a good test of the burner's ability and skill, and is a 

 proof that combustion has not proceeded beyond that point 

 necessary to drive off the volatile gas, moisture, etc., and 

 that the heating power is still retained in the wood. 



But while the use of charcoal may linger in country 

 places for a time, there seems little prospect of its ever 

 regaining its old degree of importance, or of retaining its 

 present one. Hundreds of estates on which charcoal 

 burning was a more or less annual operation fifty years 

 ago, now see the smoke of the charcoal burner's hearth no 

 more, and the name only lingers to indicate the locality 

 associated with it. Yet it cannot be denied that it was a 

 highly profitable method of using up the odd wood of tops 

 and branches, which was fit for nothing but firewood, and 

 which now has to be practically given away, or allowed to 

 rot in the wood. 



WORKING PLANS. 



A working plan for a woodland estate may be described 

 as an organised attempt to convert the real into the ideal. 

 It aims at obtaining the greatest sustained return in timber, 

 combined with the greatest economy in working expenses, or, 

 in other words, of obtaining the highest rent from the soil in 

 perpetuity. In ordinary practice, all land under timber, and 

 which is treated as a rent-yielding area, is subjected to an 

 annual or periodical demand on the growing stock. In small 

 woods these demands may only occur once in ten, twenty, 

 or thirty years, as the case may be ; in large woods they 

 may be made annually. They may either take the form 



