AMONG THE OAKS 107 



With the completion of its main growth in 

 height, the time arrives when the oak requires 

 a larger individual growing-space than it should 

 hitherto have been permitted to enjoy. Confined 

 within limits only prescribed by the danger of 

 overcrowding, the oaks have been forced upwards 

 so as to develop the greatest length of bole, 

 and the straightest, cleanest stem which can be 

 obtained under the given local circumstances ; 

 and the future object of the forester must then 

 of course be to make the young trees thicken 

 in girth as rapidly as possible, so as to get their 

 maximum of profit as a crop of timber in the 

 shortest space of time. The ' financial maturity ' 

 or most profitable time of harvesting crops of 

 timber, whether highwood, copse, or underwood, 

 is, in fact, with regard to woodlands, very much 

 what c the psychological moment ' is in human 

 affairs. 



To those who are only acquainted with our 

 British woodlands, the best-managed woods on 

 the continent of Europe would at once appear 

 unhealthily crowded, and consequently badly 

 managed. But the fact admits of no argument, 

 that woods of all descriptions must be far more 



