CHAPTER XI 

 The Improvement of British Forestry 



TREATED in most cases as coverts, game- 

 preserves, and pleasure-grounds, neither the Crown 

 forests nor the private woodlands of Britain can 

 be expected to give the returns they would yield 

 under better management. Even in cases where 

 timber is grown as an investment, the plantations 

 are as a general rule considerably understocked, 

 through having been formed at much too wide 

 distances to begin with, and then thinned when 

 they were just beginning to remedy by natural 

 means this initial defect ; while not infrequently 

 the wrong kinds of trees have been selected for 

 growing to the best advantage on the given land 

 and in the particular locality. It does not follow 



that because good results are obtained in one 



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