JANUARY 9 



prohibitive to profitable trading is the uncertain and 

 intermittent nature of the supply. An English timber 

 merchant knows exactly what he wants, and can be sure 

 of getting it through his Continental agents; but it is 

 all a matter of chance what he could get in any season 

 out of the three million acres at his door, so to speak. 

 Sentiment, love of landscape, solicitude for game, all 

 render landowners in this country very half-hearted in 

 getting the most out of their woods. A few weeks ago 

 I was staying at a fine historic castle in the Midlands. 

 The far-reaching park was rich with glorious masses of 

 woodland, just verging on the turn of the leaf. The 

 prospect from the lofty terrace was enchanting, and I 

 gladly accepted my host's invitation to take a turn with 

 him through his trees. Alas! nearer acquaintance with 

 them revealed an innumerable series of might-have-beens. 

 The soil is generous, the varied fall of the ground just 

 what affords foundation for the noblest forest; all that 

 has been lacking is the directing mind of man. Lavish, 

 unrestrained growth in every direction ; traces of arbitrary 

 unequal felling; in the blank spaces headlong jungle of 

 seedlings and saplings crowded in a mutually wasteful 

 struggle for existence. 



We passed through an extensive wood which had once 

 consisted mainly of oaks, clothing the northern declivity 

 of the hill whereon the castle stands. These oaks have 

 been grown well and sufficiently close to draw them up to 

 a great height, thus taking full advantage of the good soil 

 and propitious shelter ; they averaged about eighty feet in 

 height, with noble clean stems, some forty or fifty feet with- 

 out a branch, and seemed to be about two hundred years 

 old. Assuming that the wood consisted of about fifty acres. 



