216 



PEUmNG AND THINNING. 



PT. IV. 



largest sound timber I have ever seen in England has 

 been old pollards, allowed to grow up in our forest 

 grounds after the pollard system had ceased. They 

 were probably allowed to grow because, being many- 

 headed, their timber was not valuable. 



Such trees, I believe, continue to exist for cen- 

 turies, perhaps for thousands of years ; even after they 

 are hollow. The old pollards which grace our forest- 

 grounds and commons were probably headed as young 

 trees, and their growth cut periodically, as our under- 

 wood is now, the browsing of the deer and cattle 

 necessitating in such places this sort of aerial coppice- 

 w^ood. Charcoal was generally used before coal ; and 

 I think that the old pollards and the black circles of 

 earth about Eotherfield, in this neighbourhood, may 

 both be remains of the charcoal-burners of the forest 

 called by the Eomans Anderida Silva, and by the 

 Saxons Andredes Weald. 



However the heads of these pollards may be lopped, 

 every year of life adds one ring of new wood and bark 

 to the girthing of the stem. The same takes place 

 when the tree is perfectly hollow. The inside dead 

 wood, being dry and imporous, prevents the bleeding 

 or efflux of the sap, I have found the girthing of 

 some of these relics of the olden time much greater 

 than the girthing of any sound timber I have ever 

 measured, though probably the pollards never girthed 

 large as sound trees. Even when the circle is broken, 

 and they stand like detached strips of bark, the new 



