Common Oak 303 



can hardly see where they were cut off, and some are four feet round ; and I have 

 used the same method with unhealthy chestnuts, beech, hornbeam, and wych elm, 

 and with the same success." 



Rate of Growth 



The rate of growth in the oak is principally governed by the soil and situation, 

 and varies so much that any estimates of its possible increase are of little value 

 unless based on local experience. We often read calculations of the profits of 

 planting, drawn from Continental experience or from exceptionally favourable cases 

 in England, which are very misleading and greatly in excess of reasonable expecta- 

 tions, and there is no tree to which these remarks apply more strongly than to 

 the oak. 



Few plantations give more ample proof of this than those made by the Govern- 

 ment in the woods at Alice Holt, which were planted between 1810 and 1830, with 

 the object of providing timber for the navy, and which were no doubt done by 

 experienced planters. But the growth has been so poor that, when I visited them 

 in 1905, in company with Mr. Stafford Howard and Mr. Lascelles, we saw but few 

 oaks which looked as if they would ever be fine trees, and their average value was 

 not much over los. per tree. In one place, called Willow Green, oaks of seventy 

 years old were not over 30 or 40 feet high and not thick enough for gate- 

 posts.^ 



In many parts of the Forest of Dean the results are not much better, and are 

 largely attributed to over-thinning, and to the fact of the ground being thrown open 

 to grazing too soon ; but the soil and spring frosts must also have had a good deal 

 to do with it. 



In the New Forest the results are better, but not at all equal to what might have 

 been expected. I am indebted to Mr. Stafford Howard for the following information 

 on some of these plantations and the way in which they were made : — 



Planting in the New Forest. — In order to make provision for the future needs 

 of the navy, in view of the fact that planting had been greatly neglected in the New 

 Forest, an Act was passed, 9 & 10 Will. III., for that purpose. Under this Act it 

 was provided that 2000 acres should forthwith be enclosed and planted with timber 

 for the use of the navy only, underwood and all other produce being excluded ; that 

 200 acres should be enclosed annually for twenty years following, and that as soon 

 as any of the land thus enclosed was safe from damage from cattle, it should be 

 thrown open and a like area enclosed in its stead. The plantations described 

 were made under the powers of this Act. 



The precise form of cultivation employed was as follows : — 



" Pits or beds of three spits of ground each were dug a yard apart, and three 

 acorns planted triangularly in each bed. Half a bushel of acorns was allotted for 

 each person to plant in one day. Two regarders attended every day during 



1 Mr. Howard says that in the lower part of the Goose Green enclosure, and in the Straights, there is much better 

 timber, and that in Dr. Schlich's report on these woods over loo acres were classified as good, where the trees attain a mean 

 height of 60 feet. 



