FORESTRY ON THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



CONVERTING A SWAMP INTO A LAKE BY DREDGING AND DAMMING AS WAS 

 DONE AT WYNDYGHOUL BY MR. ERNEST SETON THOMPSON. 



with a colony of great crested fly- 

 catchers perched in its top. The artist 

 will use, in his way, the axe, just as 

 you will do his brush eliminates this 

 and that feature that his feelings tell 

 him constitute ugliness ; and he may 

 even paint in something that never was 

 there just as you can plant in some- 

 thing that Nature is crying aloud for 

 but doesn't happen to have in this par- 

 ticular spot. 



At first blush it seems perfectly hope- 

 less to expect of the average woodlot 

 any development into a sylvan paradise. 

 The trees are all about the same size 

 and seem very much alike. Many of 

 them are dead or dying ; the under- 

 brush is so thjck that one keeps to the 

 old lumber roads, and as for the brook 

 ravines they are grown up so thick with 

 saplings that it is hard work to get any- 

 where near the brook ! There isn't any 

 grove nor anything that in the least re- 

 sembles one ; the meadow and the ra- 

 vines we grant you, we have them such 

 as they are. 



Precisely; this is just where one 



starts with the idea that this woodlot 

 is "just trees and brush." Later, when 

 you have a bowing acquaintance with 

 the forty-odd tree species you will feel 

 differently about it and will begin to see 

 a light. The high ground bordering 

 ravines you will find populated with 

 sturdy dominant trees, hemmed in on 

 all sides by suppressed and crooked 

 ones, under which again is a tangle of 

 slender saplings bending every which 

 way like a thicket of fish poles. A 

 study of the tops of your biggest trees 

 will show you that the branches reach 

 far, interlacing with the suppressed tops 

 and fighting with them for light and 

 sunshine. If only these big fellows could 

 be left, with their tops just touching, 

 what a magnificent growth they would 

 make ! Well, let the axe do it and note 

 how soon you have a grove that is an 

 inspiration to walk in. The dominant 

 trees will be, in general, beech, red oak, 

 white oak, pin oak, shagbark hickory, 

 tulip tree, red maple, rock maple, sweet 

 gum. You want the beech because of 

 its magnificent spreading growth and 



