88 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



one of the most beautiful and poetic objects in 

 sylvan scenery. 



It would, indeed, be sacrilege to lay the axe 

 to the roots of the aged monarchs of many a 

 park and chase, the last survivors of stately trees 

 coeval with those which Tennyson describes so 

 graphically in ^he Foresters^ when Robin Hood, 

 addressing Maid Marian, crowned with an oaken 

 chaplet as Queen of the Wood, invites her to 



* Sit here by me, where the most beaten track 

 Runs through the forest, hundreds of huge oaks, 

 Gnarl'd older than the thrones of Europe look, 

 What breadth, height, strength torrents of eddying bark ! 

 Some hollow-hearted from exceeding age 

 That never be thy lot or mine ! and some 

 Pillaring a leaf-sky on their monstrous boles, 

 Sound at the core as we/ 



But in the woods themselves it is a different 

 matter. Here a beauty of utility can often quite 

 easily be allied closely with beauty of form, for 

 Forestry on business principles is not synonymous 

 with the spoiling of sylvan scenery. The shapely 

 stem and the well-formed crown of branches and 

 foliage of oak standards grown properly in copse- 

 woods, are no less lovely in their own way than 

 huge-limbed, rugged trees which are allowed to 



