FORESTRY 169 



grown by planting, not by sowing of acorns. 

 The principle of using nurses of coniferous timber 

 to draw up and protect the delicate young oaks 

 is adopted by means of the Scotch fir protect- 

 ing belts. Occasionally we find larch in these 

 woods, but they are more in the form of groups 

 than in that of nurses regularly planted. 



Thinning was the essence of the cultivation 

 of that era. From the first removals of any- 

 thing that might be called nurses, to the cutting 

 out of oak at the earliest age when it was in 

 any way marketable, every tree was cut that it 

 was thought could be " spared," in order to give 

 more room to its neighbour to spread and be- 

 come a fine tree, and incidentally to bring in 

 an annual income to the Crown. 



In the New Forest I found a regular five 

 years' rotation, dating back some fifty years, 

 under which each section of oak wood that was 

 of marketable age, and would yield bark then 

 worth 4 to 5 a tonwas gone over as each 

 lustrum revolved. " Income " was the overrul- 

 ing cry from the Office of Woods and the Treasury, 

 and so the woods were scraped over for income 

 till they were thinned to death. 



There is some common sense in this method. 

 It is quite reasonable to come to the conclusion 

 that you will eat your cake, and not have it to 



