3 86 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



unhealthy mother producing a diseased offspring, and vice 

 versa. There cannot be found a gardener of any large experi- 

 ence, he adds, who does not know that seedlings will exhibit 

 every diversity of constitution from health to decrepitude. 

 Perhaps the safest plan for the forester is to act in practice on 

 Dr. Lindley's opinions, and collect seeds from healthy subjects 

 only. 



section ii. — four-footed enemies of forest 

 trees!*' 



These include rabbits, hares, squirrels, mice, and deer, and it 

 may be taken for granted that these animals damage and des- 

 troy all forest trees more or less if they have the chance, and the 

 only means of preventing their ravages is to destroy them or 

 shut them out of plantations. Rabbits bark both young and 

 •.old trees to a destructive extent Hares nibble the shoots and 

 leaders of young trees, especially of the larch. Deer bark trees 

 and also injure them with their horns. Where squirrels 

 abound they do almost as much harm as rabbits by nibbling 

 the buds and shoots. The proprietor of one Highland estate 

 -writes us that he had lost thousands of pounds through their 

 depredations although he killed hundreds every year. Voles 

 .and mice gnaw the bark like rabbits,' but their ravages can be 

 told by their teeth marks and by their usually attacking young 

 trees close to the soil under the grass, while rabbits usually eat 

 above the grass. In hard weather mice also climb trees and 

 .eat the bark on the branches and small twigs. There is one 

 -thing connected with the attacks of rabbits upon young trees 

 that woodmen have often noticed, viz., that planted trees are 

 :more frequently attacked and more severely injured than trees 

 that spring up naturally from seed. This we have noticed often, 

 • especially in reference to the sycamore and ash. Patches and 

 -single trees of these spring up naturally and escape, but fill up 

 the vacant patches in the same wood with the same species, 

 and the chances are they will be destroyed if the rabbits are 

 ithere. We have known such cases often, and could point to 

 nice groups of self-sown sycamore, of considerable extent, 

 twenty years of age and upwards, that have never been 

 ^seriously injured, where scarcely a planted tree in the same 

 wood escaped. We cannot explain the fact, but probably the 

 rankness with which seedlings spring up may have something 

 Ito do with it, for there can be no doubt that when thick 



