PRESENT CONDITION OF ENGLISH FORESTRY 33 



of shrubs and trees for the purpose in question. Park and 

 hedgerow trees are pruned in a neat and tasty manner, and 

 not mutilated or disfigured by ignorant workmen, while 

 neatness and tidiness are conspicuous in all departments. A 

 typical forester on such estates is a man who has been 

 brought up as a forester, and has made a thorough practical 

 study of the subject. Such men do not profess to know 

 everything, neither do they hold extravagant ideas on any 

 particular branch of their profession, to the neglect or 

 detriment of most others. They naturally object to being 

 interfered with when discharging their legitimate duties, but 

 on the other hand are quite willing to leave the business of 

 others alone. 



The general result of leaving the management of estate 

 woods to such a man is, as already said, good. From a 

 strictly forestry point of view, it is of course not perfect, 

 because forestry pure and simple is rarely practicable on 

 English estates. But considered as a mixture of the various 

 elements which combine to make up estate forestry, and 

 which meet the requirements of most proprietors nowadays, 

 it comes nearer to perfection than any other in the bounds 

 of practice. 



The worst results obtained in English forestry are usually 

 on small estates, where the commercial details and higher 

 branches of the work are left in the hands of agents, and 

 the practical woodcraft in the hands of a foreman woodman 

 or labourer. The former are generally ignorant of the 

 general principles of sylviculture, and are too often guided 

 by motives of an indefinite nature. The woodman, on the 

 other hand, is little more than a skilled workman at the 

 best, with a rule-of-thumb acquaintance with the elements 

 of planting, thinning, draining, and so forth. The timber is 

 usually cut at irregular intervals, and quite independent of 

 its ripeness or technical value. Thinning depends more 

 upon the requirements of the estate for the thinnings than 

 the need of the plantation thinned, while replanting is usually 

 neglected altogether, or placed in the hands of nurserymen 

 at so much per acre. The result is inevitably bad, and it 

 is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. With a small 

 area of woods, it does not pay the proprietor to employ a 



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