A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



underwood shall have been established will also yield some return. When once the oaks in the woods 

 now 87-94 vears 'd h ave reached a marketable size of about 6 feet in girth, and the woods become 

 completely stocked, there will be no difficulty in raising the receipts to 12,000 or 14,000 a year, 

 and in arranging for a sustained and steadily increasing yield from that time on until probably an 

 income of 30,000 or 37,000 may be reached. But for the present the best plan is to allow the 

 woods to mature under the best conditions. This involves considerable outlay in fencing and planting 

 in order to make up deficiencies in the growing stock (or capital in wood) caused by ill-advised savings 

 in abandoning fences which ought to have been maintained for the past 50 years and by too heavy 

 thinnings ; and it therefore now becomes necessary to re-invest capital (in money) to make good the 

 sums injudiciously saved over the past half-century. No accurate estimate can be made of the actual 

 expenditure thus required, because it will vary with the amount of fencing needed for each enclosure, 

 and will have to include extraordinary sowing of beech over considerable areas in addition to the 

 regular planting or sowing of 370 acres a year. 



As a rough forecast, however, an expenditure of 7,000 a year should suffice, while the average 

 revenue from all sources (made up chiefly from inferior oaks, cut on 300 acres at 10 per acre, 

 3,000, trees in Lining Wood 500, and rents 2,500), will amount to a total of 6,000. 



The surplus of late years amounting to 2,082 a year must for the time being be foregone and 

 a certain deficit not exceeding l,ooo annually miy have to be met. 



A similar scheme of management for the period of thirty-five years (1897-1932), also drawn 

 up by the late Mr. H. C. Hill, is being carried out in the Highmeadow Woods estate adjacent 

 to the Forest of Dean and under the charge of the Deputy Surveyor of the latter. 1 This estate is 

 the absolute property of the Crown free from any rights of common, and was acquired by purchase 

 from Viscount Gage in 1817. It extends over about 3,285 acres of enclosed woods, of which 

 2,949 acres lie in Gloucestershire. The Tintern Woods, in the same district, have also been now 

 (1906) brought under the provisions of a working plan drawn up by Mr. E. P. Popert, Superinten- 

 dent Forester in the Forest of Dean. 



This improved system of management of the woods of the Crown has further led to the 

 establishment in January, 1904, of 'an experimental course of instruction for student woodmen who 

 will be employed in these Crown woods during the time of their training.' The course was 

 arranged with the sanction of the Treasury, and is held in the Crown Office, Whitemead Park. The 

 course extends over two years, and includes instruction in forest botany, sylviculture, mensuration, 

 and protection of woods. For the first course eight young men from the Forest of Dean and two from 

 Windsor Forest applied to become students, this being as many as employment could be found for 

 at that time ; but twice that number can now be instructed. 



In order to try and give a fairly comprehensive summary of the general state of arboriculture 

 throughout the private woodlands in Gloucestershire endeavours were made (1901) to collect direct 

 information concerning the various large estates on such points as (i) the acreage of the woodlands 

 and the ages of different portions, (2) the nature of the crops and the kinds of trees grown, (3) the 

 past method of treating the woods, (4) the extent and nature of recent plantations, and (5) the 

 method of planting usually adopted on each estate. All details below refer to conditions in 1901. 



The information kindly furnished in response to this endeavour by many of the chief land- 

 owners and their agents, and which is summarized below, shows that the conditions obtaining on 

 private estates are similar to those throughout most of the other English counties. Except on the 

 chalk hills, where there are large compact tracts of beech forming more or less pure highwoods, the 

 woods are for the most part copses wherein the oak is the chief standard tree, along with which are 

 also found ash, elm, beech, sycamore, chestnut, and conifers of various kinds (though mainly larch 

 and Scots pine), while the underwoods are a mixture of hazel, ash, elm, sycamore, &c. The vast 

 majority of the copses are irregular, showing that much of the art of forestry practised formerly for 

 the sake of oak timber for shipbuilding has become lost, while the underwoods no longer receive the 

 attention bestowed on them in former times, before the development of better communication by 

 land and water, and before the economic and other changes took place which now cause coppice 

 woods to have shrunk enormously in their profit-yielding capacity. Simultaneously with the great 

 fall in the value of underwoods, however, their virtual enhancement as game coverts has been an 

 additional cause of the coppices becoming less productive than formerly, because immense destruction 

 is often caused by rabbits during hard winter weather, wherever these are preserved or at any rate 

 permitted to breed in large number. So destructive are these little animals that large coverts of oak 

 standards over hazel and ash coppice are at times denuded of all underwood just as if the young 

 shoots of one year's growth had been cut down with a scythe. 



The woodlands on the Badminton estate, the property of His Grace the Duke of Beaufort, 

 aggregate 524 acres. Concerning the age, composition, and treatment of these, no details are obtain- 



1 Working Plan Report for the High Meadow Woods, by H. C. Hill, Conservator of Forests in India (on 

 furlough), London, 19 July, 1897. Mr. H. C. Hill was afterwards, from October, 1900, until his death in 

 November, 1902, Inspector General of Forests to the Government of India. 



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