104 JOUEXAL OF THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



rising tall and straight, and so close that not a ray of direct 

 sunlight ever reaches the ground, they indeed find a rich harvest 

 awaiting their axes ; but while they reap the hundred and fifty 

 or two hundred trees that stock an acre, they are apt to 

 forget the many thousands that originally grew there, hut have 

 succumbed and crumbled into mould in the struggle for exist- 

 ence. Under an artificial system of sylviculture these thinnings 

 would have gone to form the intermediate returns, which may 

 amount to 50 per cent, or more of the whole ; so that, although 

 their loss may not seriously affect the quantity or quality of the 

 final felling, it will very materially influence the gross financial 

 returns. 



Provided a natural forest consists of trees all of the same 

 age, and is felled before heart-rot has appeared in the trees that 

 have survived, the quality of the timber forming the final yield 

 may be of the very highest class ; and, if we neglect the inter- 

 mediate returns, it could hardly have been improved upon by 

 the most careful sylvicultural treatment. But, in reality, such a 

 state of things seldom, if ever, occurs. The magnificent timber 

 that reaches this country from the great virgin forests of the 

 Old and New Worlds forms but a small proportion of the 

 material actually found there. Many of the trees are so much 

 decayed as to be entirely useless, others are rotten at the heart 

 for many feet from the ground, and only the upper two-thirds or 

 so is fit for shipment ; so that the timber yielded by a given area 

 may not represent one-half of the total quantity of material found 

 on the ground. Nature is generally extremely prodigal of her 

 gifts. Of the thousands or, it may be, millions of seeds pro- 

 duced by a tree during its lifetime only a very few find them- 

 selves in circumstances favourable to development ; whereas had 

 the seeds been carefully harvested, and then sown and tended in 

 a piece of ground specially prepared for their reception, man's 

 intervention might have been the means of enabling the greater 

 number of the seedlings to surmount the dangers common to 

 youth and develop into stately trees. It is very much the same 

 with regard to the timber. When nature is the forester she can 

 and does furnish much tliat can satisfy human wants, but at 

 what a cost the confused heaps of useless stems that mark the 

 trail of the woodmen eloquently testify. 



In considering the efiect that scientific sylviculture may exert 



