10 THE SAD PLIGHT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



there could not have been less than 9000 or 10,000 cubic 

 feet of sound oak timber per acre (according to the 

 reduced British measurement of square-of-quarter girth) 

 when this oak crop reached maturity fifty years ago. At 

 Is. per foot this represents a value of 22,500 or 25,000. 

 The greater part of this value has been sacrificed in the 

 supposed interest of the landscape. Ten or fifteen years 

 ago the oaks were suddenly and severely thinned, by way 

 of improving the beauty of the wood ; and the admission 

 of light has brought up a strong growth of ash and beech 

 saplings, with other undergrowth, among which have been 

 planted a number of what are usually classed as orna- 

 mental coniferce, but which in such a scene are simply 

 so many eyesores. So far from the beauty of this fine 

 woodland being enhanced by what has been done, it has 

 been ruined. My host pointed out with much concern 

 that the oaks were failing. His forester, had he known 

 the rudiments of his business, when he was directed to 

 change the close oak wood into an open one should have 

 warned his employer that the trees left standing were 

 bound to fail. The inevitable result of suddenly isolating 

 an oak which has been grown to middle age or maturity 

 in close highwood is that an eruption of twigs and 

 branchlets springs from the trunk and from the branches 

 below the crown; the tree becomes ' stag-headed,' and 

 the timber is greatly spoilt. That is exactly what has 

 happened in the wood I am describing. These oaks have 

 passed their best; they could not have improved even 

 had they been let alone ; treated as they have been, they 

 are past praying for, and the rest of their existence must 

 be a long-drawn process of decay, diversified with random 

 and morbid growth. 



