THE ENEMIES OF ENGLISH WOODLANDS 271 



limited employment is available, and also can be more rapidly 

 done than more troublesome methods. These compositions 

 can be purchased, or manufactured at home, as may be most 

 convenient. The principal ingredient is Stockholm tar in 

 either case. The other ingredients in the purchased com- 

 positions we do not pretend to know, but a fairly effective 

 composition may be made up with Stockholm tar, a little 

 paraf&n, the sweepings of a blacksmith's shop, and cow 

 manure, mixed up into a fairly stiff compound, and sufficient 

 Benardine added to give it a smell. This mixture, laid on 

 with an old and large paint-brush, will protect trees from 

 ground game for at least twelve months, and longer in many 

 cases. When the trees are planted in compact clumps, as 

 they always should be, an occasional inspection will enable 

 the forester or woodman to see if the mixture is still effective 

 or not. As soon as the nibbling of a few trees is noticed, 

 the whole clump should be repainted at once, and not the 

 individual trees nibbled attended to only, as will be the case 

 if left to the average labourer. The idea of the latter is to 

 smear over and disguise the barked portions of the stem and 

 leave the rest untouched, the result being that fresh portions 

 of the bark are nibbled off, and the paint-brush called into 

 constant requisition. The cost of painting trees in this way 

 need not exceed 3d. per hundred, and, if we allow for two or 

 three paintings in the first two or three years, and an average 

 of a thousand plants to the acre, it will be seen that this 

 form of protection is much cheaper than netting for small or 

 irregularly shaped areas, where the latter alone possibly runs 

 up to £4 or £5 per acre. 



In the case of older plantations from which the netting 

 has been taken down, or which is no longer an effective pro- 

 tection from ground game, it is more difficult. Painting in 

 such cases is not easily done, as the thickness of the trees 

 and the presence of their branches prevenb men or boys 

 moving freely amongst them, and the carrying about of a 

 paint-pot is still more awkward. Yet, as pointed out elsewhere, 

 beech, ash, and other hardwoods are in as much need of pro- 

 tection ten years after planting as they are at first, unless 

 rabbits are kept down to a low figure. Perhaps the cheapest 

 method of protection in this stage is to prune off superfluous 



