314 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



locality, equally good results will be obtainable 

 from the same tree in quite a different part 

 of the country. Allowances must be made for 

 climatic conditions as well as for soil and sub- 

 soil. In the woods, too, that can be regenerated 

 naturally, and have thus sown themselves time 

 after time for centuries past, overthinning has 

 likewise been habitual. In great measure due, 

 no doubt, to almost immemorial custom for the 

 browsing of deer and the formation of coverts 

 and thickets for game of all sorts in past days, 

 this too free use of the axe in immature woods 

 was also more recently meant to hasten on the 

 increase of the trees in girth, thus overlooking 

 the fact that the chief profit in timber-growing 

 depends far less on the sum obtainable for a 

 comparatively small number of large trees than 

 on the sum total per acre obtainable for the 

 whole crop of wood of marketable size. The 

 direct consequence of this arboricultural treat- 

 ment has, of course, been the development of 

 a large crown and big branches. This, though 

 adding to the beauty of the tree as a natural 

 object, distinctly decreases what would otherwise 

 be its market value as so many cubic feet of 



