72 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



head canopy nil, and the margins open. The worst windfalls 

 seemed to occur in woods with unprotected margins, near to 

 highways and railways, where the wind found an entrance. 

 In other instances the gale seemed to have behaved in .the 

 most erratic manner, sometimes making a clear gap in one 

 part of a plantation and missing higher and more exposed 

 parts of it altogether. 



Another erroneous impression is that German forests exist 

 in a comparatively windless region, otherwise the dense system 

 of timber-culture could not be practised. The answer to this 

 is that Germany is not the only country where the dense 

 system of culture is pursued. Norway and Sweden are worse 

 situated than Scotland as regards gales and climate generally, 

 and yet owners there do not thin their forests at all, and send 

 us the best samples of timber that comes to this country from 

 north Europe. Moreover, central Germany is not windless, 

 nor are forest windfalls unknown there, but, on the contrary, 

 they make serious inroads in the forests as with us, . not to 

 speak of destructive snowbreaks of which we know practically 

 nothing in this country. According to Schlich, vol. iii., p. 366, 

 in certain sections of the Black Forest, from which example 

 results are given, the per centage of total fellings include 

 twelve per cent, from snowbreaks, and sixteen per cent, from 

 windfalls, which per centage is described as " fairly moderate." 

 At pages 383-4, a sample page of a working plan and 

 detailed control book, is given, in which such entries as " excess 

 due to windfalls " and heavy windfalls occur frequently. 

 Professor Schlich, who was one of the most reliable witnesses 

 that appeared before the Select Committee on Forestry, was 

 asked by the examiners to give an instance of destruction by 

 gales in Germany equal to that recorded as occurring on the 

 Duke of Buccleuch's estates in Scotland, where, in two suc- 

 cessive gales, 1,250,000 trees went down ; and the answer to 

 the question was that in the Bavarian Forest, in 1870, a gale 

 " threw down so much timber that, in spite of the efforts of the 

 officers in charge, all the available labour had not removed all 

 the timber in 1885, fifteen years afterwards, when he was 

 there." — (Question and answer No. 307, "Report of the 

 Forestry Committee," 1886.) 



In fact, the windfall plea against a better system of forestry 

 in this country will not bear investigation, and there can 

 hardly be any doubt that the " notch " system of planting, and 

 planting trees too old and too large has greatly contributed 

 to the losses caused by gales in Scotland and elsewhere. 



