232 FORESTRY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 



" The nineteenth-century foresters in charge of the Dean 

 have ruined the former fertility of the soil by trying to grow 

 oak pure beyond youth, by excessive thinning and by 

 unrestricted grazing." 



An inquiry into the iiast Idstory of the forest has revealed the 

 fact that, up to the end of the eighteentJi century, the Dean carried 

 a mixed crop of oak and heech in the proportion of one oak to 

 about two beeches ; nnder these conditions the fine oaks of 

 enormous size were j^voduced, lohich made the forest renowned 

 and jnovided large quantities of first-class timber for the "nails 

 of oak of Old England^ 



This fine crop of timber was cut early in the nineteenth 

 century, with the exception of about 500 acres which were 

 cut in 1852 — 1853, yielding an average of 154 cubic feet 

 of timber per tree according to quarter-girth measurement. 

 The cleared areas were replanted, so that most of these woods 

 are now about ninety years old and the rest forty to fifty 

 years. As far as is known, oak was planted with nurses, the 

 latter having been cut out subsequently. And then the 

 disastrous treatment commenced. When the woods had 

 reached the age of thirty or forty years, they were considered 

 safe against cattle and the greater part of the enclosures 

 were thrown open, especially to extensive sheep grazing. 

 About the same time it was considered the correct thing to 

 thin heavily, and this was done during a number of years, 

 until the trees were practically^ isolated. What the result of 

 these operations is, has already been indicated. The soil, 

 exposed to the unrestricted action of sun and air currents, 

 became in most parts practically unproductive, the result 

 being a very inferior crop of unpromising oaks, short in 

 height and branched low down. How different might have 

 been the results, if, instead of throwing open the enclosures 

 and making injudicious thinnings, the oak had been under- 

 planted with beech at the age of thirty to fifty years, thus 

 keeping the soil under constant protection and causing a 

 gradual accumulation of fertile leaf-mould on the soil. 



