146 THE NEW FOREST 



single rail, for twenty years to the detriment 

 of no one might be accorded to them. But 

 this is prohibited by an Act that honestly meant 

 well to the New Forest, but, as it came to be 

 drafted, struck it the severest blow it had 

 encountered since the last "well meant" Act 

 in 1851. Alas ! between two Acts of Parliament, 

 pulling in diametrically opposite directions, the 

 poor Forest came to sad grief. I am writing 

 now to those who love trees and understand 

 forestry not the economic forestry of the German 

 professor, though that is all very well in those 

 parts of this or any forest that are suitable 

 for it, but more that of the Estate Forestry 

 practised in these islands among parks, ancient 

 chases, forests, such as the New Forest where 

 the beauty of the surroundings is the first object, 

 and where the annual production of so many 

 cubic feet of marketable timber is not put in 

 front of all other considerations. Two things 

 will strike them, first, that these beautiful old 

 woods are mainly composed of beech timber, 

 and for that reason their life is likely to be all 

 the shorter, than if the oak predominated. 



But they will have observed in those speci- 

 mens of modern encoppicements and natural 

 regeneration, of which, thank God, there are a 

 good many Denny enclosure is a fine example 



