THE NEW FORESTRY. 1 3 



only being permitted. That being so, it follows that the 

 system of forestry that necessitates the most frequent dis- 

 turbance of the woods must be the worst for the game, and the 

 system that answers to this description more than any other 

 is our own system of forestry of the past, for nowhere, except 

 in this country, are woods so needlessly disturbed under the 

 pretence of thinning, pruning, inspection, or work of some 

 kind or other. The quietness and repose of Continental forests, 

 even of small extent, are a contrast to the bustle that goes 

 on in English plantations. What disturbs game in coverts 

 are sight and sound, and nothing prevents the one or deadens 

 the other so much as a dense crop of timber. A gamekeeper's 

 idea of a wood is one adapted to his own notions of game 

 preservation, however crude these may be, and his own con- 

 venience. It must consist throughout of timber trees standing 

 thinly on the ground, never to come down, sufficiently furnished 

 with coppice or underwood for the shelter of his pheasants, but 

 not so dense as to prevent himself or his beaters from facing the 

 covert comfortably on a dewy or wet morning on a shooting 

 day. Should it be a young plantation, so thick as likely to 

 brush his coat tails, it is time, according to the keeper, that it 

 was thinned, and many a plantation has been thinned for no 

 better reason. Though the keeper's days of actual work, 

 during the shooting season, often do not embrace a week or 

 ten days throughout the whole year, and his shooting " day " 

 does not begin before ten o'clock and ends soon after lunch, 

 he would without scruple sacrifice his employer's crop of timber 

 for the reasons described, if he had his way, when he ought 

 to have men and dogs to do his bidding without trouble. 

 Woodmen have to do the work of the woods in nearly all 

 weathers, and are often drenched to the skin when felling, 

 thinning, or draining, and no complaint is heard, but a keeper 

 must not endure such hardships. It is, however, the southern 

 keeper who is most fastidious. He knows least and wants 

 most, and a training in the fir woods of Scotland for one winter 

 would be a useful experience for him in his own line. These 

 remarks are made in the knowledge that a prejudice exists 

 against dense plantations in connection with game preser- 

 vation, and that the prejudice has originated mainly through 

 ignorant and incapable gamekeepers. 



There are signs, however, that the gamekeepers will by and 

 by have to conform to a different. state of things. All that is 

 needed to put an end to the present system is to show gentle- 

 men that they may have both timber and game if they go the 



