3i8 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



outlay. Old labourers of the present day are eloquent on 

 the subject of those bygone days, and their accounts of the 

 men employed, and the work that went on, make it clear to 

 the intelligent listener that luxury was a greater feature than 

 economy, and that these good old times were often the moral 

 ruin of those who lived in them. 



The training received by the average forester up to the 

 end of the nineteenth century varied more according to his 

 necessities and opportunities than to his needs. The appoint- 

 ment of foresters on large estates was always of a more or 

 less haphazard nature, and a man who had little or no 

 previous experience of the work had as much chance of 

 getting an appointment, provided he had influence behind 

 him, as a more capable man with no influence beyond his 

 own abilities. It is only too apparent that, while some filling 

 the posts of foresters have been born foresters, with all 

 the instincts of trained sylviculturists, although perhaps 

 without the fulness of their knowledge, others again have 

 been mere makeshifts who have adopted or followed the 

 profession from mercenary motives alone. Incompetence in 

 English estate forestry is a fault which may remain undetected 

 for a lifetime, and the effects of which may not be revealed 

 until the offender has finished his career; and it is an 

 unfortunate fact in many ways that inferior men, so far as 

 outward appearances go, make as good a show for a time as 

 those who have the interests of the estate woods more at 

 heart. Until quite recently (and to some extent even now) 

 it was no uncommon thing to find all classes of men filling 

 the position of estate forester. Any man with a general 

 knowledge of estate work was considered qualified to manage 

 the woods, more especially on those estates on which the 

 area under wood chiefly consisted of coppice with standards. 

 It required no great ability to manage a squad of half a 

 dozen woodmen, to mark and measure the necessary number 

 of trees for estate use or sale, and to see that hedges and 

 fences were more or less in good condition. Such were about 

 the extent of the duties of the majority of estate foresters, 

 so far as the woods were concerned, on English estates of 

 moderate size, and it is evident that forestry proper did not 

 enter into them beyond those details already mentioned. 



