8 THE SAD PLIGHT OF BKITISH FORESTRY 



sustain an unbroken canopy of foliage until they have 

 attained their full height. This exclusion of sunlight, 

 necessary to prevent the formation of side branches, is 

 inimical to the growth of most plants producing under- 

 cover. Except on the most generous soils, the floor of 

 a wood so treated is apt to become as bare as that of a 

 barn. This is of less importance nowadays, one would 

 suppose, because of the intensely artificial character 

 which cover-shooting has been made to assume; indeed, 

 hurdles and made-up stick shelters are often placed at 

 such places where it is desired to have a rise of pheasants, 

 and to the guns placed outside the wood it can matter 

 very little whether the birds rise from a natural brake 

 or from a makeshift. 



But a rightly managed woodland, bearing a proper 

 rotation of crop, will contain trees in all stages of growth, 

 including breadths from five to twenty years planted, 

 than which there is no kind of cover more beloved of 

 game. Here I make no reference to copse, the subject 

 of anxiety being the supply of mature timber, not forest 

 products in general. In the attempt to make every wood 

 a pheasant cover, landowners have got into the habit of 

 unmerciful thinning, leaving trees so far apart as to throw 

 out side limbs instead of building up stems. Great must 

 be the bewilderment of a German forester, scientifically 

 trained and of ripe experience, when he sees for the first 

 time a typical English woodland, managed, it must seem 

 to him, purposely to prevent the formation of clean 

 timber, and the trees encouraged to form great spreading 

 heads as if for orchard purposes. 



If the quality of the timber produced be unsatisfactory 

 compared with that from Continental forests, still more 



