xii PREFACE 



provement of the productive capacity of the soil is 

 either not recognised, or at any rate not practically 

 given effect to. Even Thomas Carlyle, who, as a shrewd 

 country-bred youth with good powers of observation, 

 probably knew as much about forestry as the 

 average forester in Britain, makes the following rather 

 depreciatory remark in regard to the normal density 

 of the forests through which he happened to pass in 

 his Excursion {futile enougli\ to Paris, published in the 

 New Review, for October 1891, " Wood enough still, but 

 twice or even thrice as thick as we allow it to be' an 

 unfavourable criticism which is certainly terse enough 

 in its disposal of the question of density in plantations. 



Even taking into consideration the damper insular 

 climate of Britain, in which the soil is not so likely to 

 deteriorate as on the inland forest tracts of the 

 Continent, there can be no doubt that a greater 

 degree of density and a better protection of soil 

 against insolation, either by the maintenance of close 

 canopy in high forest, or by underplanting wherever 

 the canopy naturally begins to get interrupted and 

 broken in the case of light-loving species like oak, 

 ash, maple, pine, or larch, cannot fail to be produc- 

 tive of marked improvement in the quality of the 

 timber, and in the total outturn both from the prelimi- 

 nary and from the final yield of forest crops. In 

 particular, some of the larch forests seen by the 

 author formed the finest possible examples of how 

 woods should not be reared, and exhibited a total 

 misconception of the requirements of forest crops in 

 general, and of this species in particular. 



Whilst adhering consistently to the principle that 

 sylviculture in Britain should be engaged in by private 



