RECLAMATION OF WASTE LAND. 431 



Surveyors' Institute, at Plymouth, said Mr. Leese, an 

 experienced forester, who has studied the matter in that 

 country, " there is no rivalry between the forester and 

 the gamekeeper." In truth, the forester and gamekeeper 

 are one and the same person. And the landlord is of the 

 same mind as his officer with the twofold charge. He 

 prefers trees to rabbits. And the consequence is, in Mr. 

 Leese's words, that in Germany " there are no rabbits." 

 There is plenty of sport all the same. But landowners do 

 not throw away the gold of profit for the dross of rabbit 

 shooting. On a forest estate that I know — an estate of 

 about 45 square miles, owned at the time that I am speak- 

 ing of by a nobleman who had himself, before succeeding 

 to this property, been a forest officer in the service of the 

 Crown — the landlord went so far as to hid his agricultural 

 tenants keep the deer and the wild boars of his forests off 

 their fields by watchmen's cries and trumpetings at night, 

 and lanterns and barking dogs. His battues were rather 

 famous. But he would not allow sport to interfere with 

 agricultural or sylvicultural production. 



Whatever be the cause of our present poverty in forest, 

 and however unwilling, according to the Latin proverb, 

 may be the hounds that we have to hunt with, we now 

 seem determined that such mischief as the war has pressingly 

 disclosed shall be put an end to. The limited supply of 

 our land, as observed, makes its ownership a " trust " as 

 well as a possession. And under certain conditions the 

 Nation has a good right to call those who, under its pro- 

 tection, occupy that national heirloom, to account with 

 regard to their administration of it. The mischief, so we 

 appear aU agreed, must be set right. The question now 

 to decide is : How ? Here we are in a predicament — 

 without chart, without guide. For nobody will gainsay 

 Lord Selborne's statement — speaking broadly, of the mass 

 of those concerned — 



" I do not think that there is any knowledge of the subject 

 at all. I think that landowners, agents, bailiffs, surveyors and 

 the whole hierarchy of the people who have to do with land, are 

 absolutely ignorant of the very elementary principles of forestry. 



