WOODLANDS, GAME, AND SPORT 307 
per acre, at 50, 60, 70, 80, go, and 100 years 
respectively; and this is of itself no inconsider- 
able charge against the rate of profit yielded by the 
crop of timber. But, heavy though this item be, 
it represents nothing like the monetary equiva- 
lent of the actual damage done by the rabbits in 
literally eating away the value of the crop. 
Often, too, the conditions under which timber 
and coppice are sold clash with the possibility of 
obtaining the full market value for the produce. 
On estates where game preservation is one of the 
main objects in view, the forestry work is ex- 
pected to be carried out between the end of the 
shooting season and the beginning of the nesting 
period, so that all thinning, felling, and planting 
operations have to be crowded into about six 
weeks of February and March, quite regardless of 
whether or not that may be the most suitable 
time for doing the work. It is not the best time, 
but it is the only ‘seasonable’ time from the 
gamekeeper’s point of view. As the trees are 
felled when getting beyond their dry winter con- 
dition (the best time for felling), and as he is 
forced to remove the timber immediately, the 
buyer will not give as much for it as might other- 
