36 REVIVAL OF FORESTRY 



but the iriajority ridiculed the idea of such being 

 within the bounds of possibiUty. The bad gales 

 experienced in this country were against it for 

 one thing they would tell you, and quote so and 

 so who had lost hundreds, may be thousands, of 

 acres blown out. But they were unaware that in- 

 different planting, the haphazard felling methods 

 by which an old wood was felled, thereby exposing 

 to the full fury of the next gale a series of younger 

 ones which had grown up in its shelter, and the 

 absence of all attempts to plant shelter belts. were 

 to a great extent responsible for the devastation 

 done in British woods by gales. 



The estate agent was usually equally ignorant 

 of all pertaining to forestry matters. The demands 

 of the gamekeeper on the estate, with reference to 

 the management of the woods, were far more 

 important in his eyes than those of the forester, and 

 were almost mvariably given precedence, to the 

 detriment of the woods. And for the forester, 

 you wiU ask where he came in ! WeU, he didn't 

 come in. According to old methods he knew his 

 work well. His nursery and his planting work, in 

 spite of his persistent love for the British method of 

 notch planting with the ordinary spade, probably 

 one of the most pernicious ever invented, were 

 good ; his nursery work in Scotland probably the 

 ^nest in the world. But after that he could only do 

 as his forefathers had done before hirii, for he had 

 nothing else to go by. 



How could this state of affairs have persisted 

 in the country for so long ? How could the capital 



