THE MANAGEMENT
OF
ENGLISH WOODLANDS
W. F. BEDDOES
MAIN LIBRARY- AGRICULTURE DEPT.
THE MANAGEMENT OF
ENGLISH WOODLANDS
ERRATUM
On page 150 the triangle shown in the note should appear thus :
B
1 In the triangle /j , and not as printed.
Also the smaller type in which this occurs should be a footnote, and not
form part of text, as at present.
THE MANAGEMENT
OF
ENGLISH WOODLANDS
BY
W. F. BEDDOES
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON,
KENT & CO. LTD., 4 STATIONERS'
HALL COURT : : LONDON, E.C.4
ir^ published 1919
MAIN UBSARY-AGrrcULTURE DEP1
CONTENTS
PAGB
INTRODUCTION . . . , . . vii
CHAPTER I
PLANTING . . . * . . . 3
CHAPTER II
THINNING . ." . .^ \ 9 ' 29
CHAPTER III
MIXED AND PURE WOODS . . . * 43
CHAPTER IV
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES . . . . 57
CHAPTER V
PLANTING FOR SHELTER . . , v . 81
CHAPTER VI
FINANCE . . . . . . . m 89
V
5172,?
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII
PAGE
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY ..... I 3
CHAPTER VIII
AFFORESTATION . . . .127
CHAPTER IX
MEASUREMENT . ..
CHAPTER X
PUBLIC BURDENS . . .
INDEX . .
INTRODUCTION
THE first question in practical forestry is, What
kind of trees should be planted ? This work has
been written under the conviction that the
English planter who plants his woods with a
view to the realisation of a profit by the sale of
the mature timber must rely mainly on three
trees only, namely, larch, ash, and oak. Other
trees may be valuable in particular situations
or with reference to particular markets, but as
the main sources of profit from planting they
cannot equal larch, ash, and oak.
The question, What kind of trees should be
planted ? may be answered by saying, Only those
kinds which have been proved to be attrac-
tive to English timber-merchants; other kinds
are experimental. A prudent man, when he
plants in the hope of realising a profit,
will keep his experiments within moderate
limits.
Other trees may in some circumstances be
Vll
viii INTRODUCTION
planted with advantage. Some districts are
particularly suitable for other trees, which there
grow to a large size and command a ready
market. Where local circumstances thus point
out a tree, it should be planted. Also a planter,
although anxious to make a profit, will probably
not be exclusively influenced by financial con-
siderations, and will plant some trees, not very
likely to sell well, in order to gratify his aesthetic
taste, because they add beauty and variety to
the wood. Still, these trees require a special
reason to justify their place in a wood. In the
point of view of planting for a profit, larch, ash,
and oak stand in a class by themselves.
The climate of Great Britain is very favour-
able to the growth of ash, oak, and all broad-
leaved trees. It is not quite as good for larch
as the climate of Switzerland, but it is better
than that of the greater part of France and
Germany.
The soil of woodlands is almost always very
poor. As a rule no land is planted in countries
of settled civilisation, if it can be used for agri-
culture. The task of the forester is to grow
woods on land which in quality is between the
worst agricultural land and sterility.
The English planter suffers from many dis-
INTRODUCTION ix
advantages. One of these is the great difference
in price between the timber in the round which
he sells and the sawn timber. Not unusually
the price of sawn timber is more than three
times per cubic foot the price of the tree from
which it has been cut. The important fact
which the timber-grower should always remember
is that his margin of profit is very small. The
feller, hauler, railway company, saw-mill, and
timber-merchant absorb so much of the money
which the ultimate customer pays, that a very
small residue is left for the grower of the timber.
The classification enforced by the railway com-
panies, their charges and their preferential treat-
ment of foreign timber, may possibly be justified
by cogent reasons, but it cannot be denied that
they produce a considerable diminution of the
price which a timber-grower might obtain under
more favourable conditions. There is hardly
any grower of a natural product who has so
small a proportion of the profit made by the
sale of the converted article as the grower of
timber in England. Better organisation among
timber-growers and better arrangements for
marketing their timber might prevent, or at
least lessen, these disadvantages. At the present
time they exist, and cannot be ignored in any
x INTRODUCTION
consideration of the subject of commercial
forestry.
The public burdens on woodlands are not the
least of the disadvantages which attend timber-
growing in Great Britain. Woodlands are sub-
ject to the poor rates on an assessment of their
prairie value, and they do not share in the one-
half exemption given by the Agricultural Rating
Act to agricultural land. They are assessed for
Income Tax under Schedule A at a figure which
is usually the same as the Poor Law Assessment.
They are also assessed for Income Tax under
Schedule B at the same figure, or alternatively
they are assessed under Schedule D if the timber-
grower so elects. The timber, when felled or
sold, is liable to death duties at the rates attribut-
able to the value of the estate on which it grew.
The result is that English woodlands are subject
to heavy annual payments in each of the many
years that elapse between the planting and the
sale of the mature crop, and also a heavy deduc-
tion for death duties is made from the sale
price.
The greater part of the imported timber sold
in England in competition with British-grown
timber is either Scandinavian and Baltic or
Canadian. It is self-sown on land which is
INTRODUCTION xi
practically free from taxation, and, in the majority
of cases it is water-borne from the forest to the
English docks. France and Germany are timber-
importing countries.
The English planter has the disadvantages set
out in the preceeding paragraphs. Also the
conditions of climate and market are different
from those on the Continent or in America.
English forestry cannot, therefore, from the
point of view of an owner or land-agent,
be adequately treated as if it were merely a
branch of continental or world-wide forestry.
A thoughtful observer who considers the diffi-
culty of forestry and the disadvantages which
beset English owners will be amazed at the
excellence and the quantity of the timber in
English woods. In the past a depreciation of
English woodland management has been fashion-
able, and considered to be some proof of superior
wisdom and freedom from insular prejudice. At
the beginning of the war there were numerous
letters in the public press and speeches by those
who professed to speak with expert knowledge,
stating that, if the war lasted two years, all the
woods in the country would be unable to produce
sufficient pit-props for the mines. The great
masses of plantations which now exist at the
xii INTRODUCTION
end of a four-years war show that the quantity
of timber in English woods had been grossly
under- estimated.
The public returns show that from 1914 to
1916 the imports of timber had fallen from eight
million loads to six million loads. Possibly
these figures do not include all the timber im-
ported into England by the Government, nor all
the foreign timber imported into France for the
use of the army. Whatever may be the precise
figures there can be no doubt that during the
war the timber used for pit-props and for army
purposes, both in France and England, was
mainly drawn from the woodlands of the United
Kingdom. There is also no doubt that the
country has taken this timber at very cheap
rates. No timber during this war, not even the
best qualities of ash, has made better prices
than were obtained during the Napoleonic wars.
Nearly all woods have been sold at a figure
which represents less than 4 per cent, of the
capital sunk in their production. If there are
any woods which sold for more than 4 per cent,
of the cost of production they must be extremely
exceptional cases. Most timber sold during the
war was taken at prices compulsorily fixed by
the Timber Controller or the War Losses Com-
INTRODUCTION xiii
mission. No figures have been published show-
ing on what basis they proceeded in fixing
prices, but it is fairly certain that the compulsory
prices for oak gave the grower not more than
1 or 1J per cent, of the cost of production, and
that the price of ash and pit-props never exceeded
4 per cent.
Forestry, like all other arts for growing natural
products, has three main divisions : the selection
and preparation of the soil, the cultivation and
harvest of the crop, and the sale of the crop,
which is the last in date, but is the aim which
the grower has in view from the beginning. A
farmer can generally anticipate, within reason-
able limits, the price which his crop will bring,
and can regulate his cultivation accordingly. If
he is mistaken he loses the labour and expense
of only one year. A tree-grower can form no
notion of the price of his crop fifty or a hundred
years later than the planting. His only plan is
to make the assumption that during the growth
of the wood the price of timber will not fall. If
his market, owing to altered circumstances, fails,
and his calculation of the price proves to be
mistaken, he loses the labour and expense of
many years. As for example, when a change
in trade has depreciated the value of the crop
xiv INTRODUCTION
of a coppice wood that had been very remunera-
tive, it may be impossible either to find a pur-
chaser for the crop or to alter the method
of management without incurring excessive
cost.
The long period between the planting of young
trees and the harvest of the mature timber
has serious effects. By reducing the chance
that the planter will reap a personal benefit
from his expense and labour, it causes
a reluctance to plant. The long period of
growth also prevents the same man who plants
the crop from personal observation of it
from the start to the finish. Many years may
pass before the consequences of a mistaken
method become evident. Mistakes can rarely
be remedied. Experiments are very difficult to
contrive.
A farmer knows from books and teaching the
usual practice of growing a crop, but for the
details of cultivation he mainly relies on his own
observation or the consensus of the views held
by the most intelligent farmers in his neighbour-
hood. As the result of successive trials for
innumerable years it becomes known what fields
are suited for any crop, what variety of seed
and what quantity should be sown, and all the
INTRODUCTION xv
other details of cultivation have been repeatedly
tested.
In forestry it is different. In many cases there
is no past history of the land which can give assist-
ance to the forester. There is no knowledge of
the capacity of the site for growing timber, gained
by the experience of many crops of timber on
that land. A landowner may know that a plot
of land is apparently such as is usually suitable
for certain trees, and that these trees are usually
planted of a certain size and distance apart,
but he has no past experiments to guide him in
deciding how far the general rules should be
varied to meet the local peculiarities of his own
land, and whether the land is really as suitable
for timber as it seems to be.
Forestry is an art, the rules of which cannot
be stated with precision. Rules may be of
great value. A forester who has an adequate
knowledge of the methods by which success has
been obtained by others is more likely to be
successful than another man of equal ability
who has no other guide than his own experience.
But no rules can apply accurately to the local
peculiarities of different properties. Success in
forestry mainly depends on personal observation
and practical sagacity. It is a great mistake
xvi INTRODUCTION
to demand in any art more accuracy than the
subject admits, or to assume, without proof,
that forestry is capable of precise rules, like the
arts of building or painting. If rules of forestry
could be discovered which were universal, pre-
cise, and useful, the knowledge of them would
not make a man a forester. They would be like
a good library, which is useful but does not
make a man a good scholar.
The modern method of education increases
the tendency to over-estimate the theoretical side
of forestry and to ignore the practical difficulties.
A man who has been taught forestry in a college
by means of lectures and examinations, joined
to occasional excursions in woods, has no ex-
perience in overcoming the difficulties of daily
work in the woods, and therefore they do not
appear to him to be of great importance. He
cannot judge how far he is able to meet them,
or to what extent they interfere with the possi-
bility of carrying out what he may rightly con-
sider to be the best method of management.
The practical difficulties of forestry will be
apparent to any one as soon as he undertakes
the management of woodlands. The total of
all his expenses must be kept below the total of
all his receipts, and timber in comparison with
INTRODUCTION xvii
other crops brings very small receipts ; therefore,
the forester is always hampered by the necessity
of exercising a rigid economy. The site of his
woods may be the poorest soil in the country,
given to forestry only because it is fit for nothing
else. Frequently the woods will be in remote
districts and with bad roads, so that haulage,
the supply of labour, and supervision will be
difficult and expensive. In winter prolonged
periods of bad weather may stop all work. In
summer there may be droughts, killing young
trees and exposing the woods to the risk of fire.
Gales of wind will injure the plantations.
Rabbits and trespassing sheep and cattle may,
in spite of the utmost care and vigilance, do
serious damage. Sometimes, for no apparent
reason, the growth of woods will disappoint the
forester. When the woods are ripe for sale the
forester must deal with timber-merchants, a
class of men whose training, on whatever lines
it may have been conducted, has made them
most efficient in the protection of their own
interests.
Ignorance of practical difficulties produces
extravagant promises of success. If it is objected
to the enthusiast that his promises cannot be
fulfilled, unless his woods grow much larger
b
xviii INTRODUCTION
quantities of timber than have hitherto been
seen in English woods, he confidently replies that
there will be a great difference in the quantity
and quality of the timber, because earlier woods
were the result of rule-of-thumb practice, while
his woods, as the result of sound principles and
scientific knowledge in forestry, will be fully
stocked with excellent timber. The sanguine
prophet of great improvements in forestry due
to scientific knowledge has at least one undoubted
source of comfort, his views cannot receive an
early refutation. Before the woods grow to
maturity and the results are known, both he
and his critics will for the most part have left
this world.
The mere failure of a wood to thrive or to
produce an adequate income does not necessarily
involve blame to the planter or to the present
owner, if they are different persons. Success
cannot be always attained in attempts to grow
timber crops upon land on the margin of sterility.
In the cultivation of such land some failures
are inevitable : the result may show that en-
closure and planting have done no more than
substitute dead and stunted trees in the place
of worthless herbage. Nor is the existence of
a crop of trees inferior to what could grow on
INTRODUCTION xix
the same land necessarily a proof of bad manage-
ment. The cost of cutting down the unprofitable
trees and replanting the land may be so great
compared with any probable receipts that it
would be wise to allow the wood to remain in
the present state.
In all countries the management of wood-
lands artificially created must be a difficult art,
because it means growing good crops on poor
land. The long period of the growth of the trees
deprives the forester of the advantage of the
personal observation and experiment which help
the farmer. In Great Britain the burdens of
taxation and foreign competition are especially
severe. The result is that the account of ex-
penses and receipts of forestry in England can-
not be made to square unless the planter shows
great care in the planting and the maintenance
of his woodlands, methodical management,
adroitness in selling the timber, and always
avoids spending money on expensive methods
when adequate methods can be followed at
moderate cost.
PLANTING
CHAPTER I
PLANTING
ECONOMY in planting is essential if plantations
are expected to produce a profit. In the long
interval between the planting of the young
trees and the sale of the mature trees the planter
loses his money and the interest which that
money would have produced; therefore, in the
accounts which show the financial results of
the plantation, compound interest must be
charged. In accounts taken at compound in-
terest over long periods items at the commence-
ment of the account accumulate to a very large
extent. It is clear that unless the total amount
on the debit side of the account is to exceed
any sum which is likely to be produced by the
sale of the mature trees, the initial cost, that is,
the cost of planting, must be kept to the lowest
possible figure.
It may be objected to the plea for great
economy in planting that the long interval
between the planting and the final sale makes
3
4' ' EtfGMSH WOODLANDS
it certain in most cases that the same man who
plants will never sell the mature trees, and that
therefore planting cannot be looked at merely
as a commercial undertaking, and also that a
man who plants from a sense of duty or the
love of seeing on his land thriving plantations
will not pay much attention to the expenditure
in planting of a few pounds more or less per
acre. There may be something in the argument
that planting cannot be considered as simply
a commercial undertaking, but even proof that
there is no pecuniary profit in planting can be
no excuse for unnecessary expenditure.
Altitude has little or no effect on the climate
in the British Isles. There are no lofty ranges
of hills, where the traveller, as he ascends, passes
through different zones of climate. Altitude
in this country is important to the planter, as
it increases the exposure to gales and to denu-
dation. There are very few flourishing woods
above the 1,000-foot contour- line. Planting at
a greater altitude is, as a general rule, a very
doubtful experiment, but this rule can be modi-
fied by local circumstances. The situation of
plantations on high ground is relative. Trees
thrive better at 1,100 or 1,200 feet if protected
by still higher hills, than many planted at 800
PLANTING 5
or 900 feet not so protected. A low altitude
is not, in itself, an advantage. Lands exposed
to gales from the sea and large level plains are
unfavourable for planting, however moderate
their altitude may be.
The geological character of a district, unless
it is a limestone or chalk formation, does not
very seriously affect the size or the kind of the
trees which can grow on it. As a general rule,
if a planter is satisfied with the visible soil, he
need not inquire into the nature of the under-
lying rock on which it rests.
The aspect of a wood does not have a very
important influence on the growth of the trees.
A north aspect is free from sudden variations
of temperature, and in spring the new buds are
retarded, so that there is a diminished chance
that they will be injured by late frosts. Trees
on a south aspect are liable to be brought into
bud by the heat of the sun, and so become more
susceptible to injury by frost at night. A high
dry bank facing south is the worst aspect, but
the injurious effects of this aspect are mainly
confined to the early years of the plantation.
All trees, but particularly beech and larch, when
planted on a dry south bank, may die in large
numbers if the next summer after planting is
6 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
hot and dry. If that summer is rainy, the
probability is that the young trees will establish
themselves and afterwards grow well. Some
excellent woods grow on south banks.
A bank with a northerly aspect is more likely
to be suitable for a plantation than a bank with
any other aspect. Such a bank is free from the
danger of being burnt by the sun, and is not
generally exposed to violent winds, and the
buds of young trees are not brought out pre-
maturely.
Banks with an easterly or westerly aspect
are greatly improved for planting by the pres-
ence of some old trees on the side facing the
prevailing wind.
Situation and soil are important matters for
the consideration of a planter. One of the
practical difficulties of planting is that, as a
rule, a planter has not much choice in the selec-
tion of the site of his proposed plantation. He
cannot expect to grow any trees equal to the
famous trees of past generations. They grew in
good land and were probably self-sown, and by
a lucky chance escaped from being browsed by
cattle in infancy. In these days good lands
are used for farming, and plantations are con-
fined to the inferior soils. On such soils there
PLANTING 7
is not nutriment enough to grow great masses
of wood.
The improvement of damp situations by
drainage is possible. A few drains to take the
water from hollows or swampy places are useful
and not expensive. A regular drainage system
is expensive, and should not be attempted unless
expense need not be considered. If there is so
much stagnant water that drainage is necessary,
it is a prudent course to leave the land unplanted.
Instead of adapting damp ground to the
growth of trees which cannot thrive in it as
long as it is damp, the best plan is to plant
trees which naturally thrive in damp ground,
such as ash, Sitka spruce, alder, and black
Italian poplar.
In addition to the expense of extensive drain-
age, there is the further objection that it may
involve over-drainage. The drains may remove
a dampness which is essential to fertility. It
is not uncommon to find woods intersected with
deep ditches and composed of stunted and stag-
headed trees, suffering from drought. The roots
of the trees to some extent themselves act as
drains. They suck up the water, and thus
diminish the dampness in the ground. Shallow
pools frequently dry up when woods grow round
8 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
them. Still, this suction of water by the roots
of trees is very limited in extent. Trees are
frequently planted along mill-courses and small
streams, and do not seem to diminish the flow
of the water.
Trenching the ground is, like a regular system
of drainage, very expensive. It may in some
cases enable trees to grow where otherwise they
could not live, or it may give trees a much
quicker start than they would have without it,
but as a general rule better results are obtained
by a choice of trees suitable for the existing
conditions of the soil than by any attempt to
alter the soil conditions. The benefit given by
trenching seems to be confined to the early
years of the trees. After fifteen to twenty years
from the planting it is rarely possible to see
any difference between those planted on trenched
ground and those on untrenched ground. The
cost of trenching makes it extremely uncommon
in any woodlands managed on a commercial
basis and with a view to the realisation of profits.
Ploughing the land in strips as a preparation
for planting is on flat land sometimes both
useful and economical. It loosens the soil more
effectually than mere digging the holes, and
also reduces the probability that the young
PLANTING 9
trees will be over-topped by heather, fern, or
gorse.
The formation of fences is an expensive item.
The cost of erecting a fence round a small planta-
tion, say, one of four acres or less, may vary
very much according to the cost of labour and
material in the locality of the plantation, but
in every case the fence would almost certainly
cost more than the trees. The larger the
plantation the less is the cost per acre. The
ratio of increase between acreage and fences,
assuming that the plantation is in the form
approximately of a square, is that a fourfold
increase of acreage requires a twofold increase
of fences. Suppose that a plantation of four
acres cost 12 for fences that is, 3 per acre
then sixteen acres require 24, or 1 10s. per
acre, and sixty-four acres require 48, or 15s.
per acre. A forty-acre plantation costs for the
erection and maintenance of the fences only
double a ten-acre plantation.
Long rectangular plantations have the largest
amount of fences per acre. Circular fences
should be avoided, because they are difficult to
erect.
In order to make use of existing fences, and
so reduce the cost, a plantation should, if possible,
10 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
be made on the site of an old wood or on land
adjoining an old wood ; and in the case of a
plantation made on land separate from other
woods, entire fields should be planted, so that
use can be made of the existing fences, and if
this is impossible, the plantation should be of
as large an extent as circumstances permit.
Wherever the woods are of a straggling and
irregular form it is generally possible, by planting
land between the woods, to make a great reduc-
tion in the amount of fencing compared with
the acreage of the woods.
The usual form of a new plantation-fence is
double : there is a fence of wire-strands or rails,
and on the inside of that fence a hedge is planted.
The thorn hedge is intended to be the permanent
protection of the plantation, and the wire or
wood fence to be the temporary protection of
the thorn hedge. In most cases the thorn
hedge should be omitted ; it causes consider-
able expense in planting and subsequent main-
tenance. If the trees are planted close to the
hedge it rarely grows satisfactorily, and if a
space of 8 or 10 feet on the inside of the hedge
is left unplanted, there is a serious loss of ground.
The hedge is generally unnecessary. A well-
made fence will last at least twelve years, and
PLANTING 11
when decay begins the plantation should supply
from thinnings materials for repairs.
Local habit generally shows what is the most
convenient fence, but in the absence of some
good reason to the contrary a wire fence should
be adopted. The posts should be 8 feet apart,
2 feet 6 inches in the ground, and 5 feet above
the ground, of oak or larch preferably, and
felled near the proposed fence so that the cost
of haulage may be moderate. They should, if
possible, be barked a few months before erection
and allowed to season. Soft and perishable
wood can be used for fencing if creosoted.
Creosoted posts, concrete posts, or iron standards
can be used whenever there are no natural
posts available. The preference of either of
these depends on the price for which they can
be brought to the fence. The direction of a
new fence should be so laid out that it does not,
unless absolutely necessary, cross ground to
which the fencing materials can be carried only
by hand.
A wooden rail at about 14 inches from the
ground binds the posts together and strengthens
the fence; it also hinders sheep from pushing
through the wires. A barbed wire, with barbs
6 inches apart, is most useful when fixed as the
12 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
top wire at about 5 feet from the ground. In
that position it hinders transit by trespassers
and pushing by cattle and horses. Two plain
wires between the barbed wire and the rail and
one under the rail make a useful fence, and
cost as much as can prudently be allotted to
making a fence.
Galvanised wire has in recent years almost
superseded ungalvanised. It is almost certainly
much more immune from destruction by rust,
but there has not been sufficient time to
definitely decide how it compares with ungal-
vanised in strength and duration.
Wire netting, 4 feet high on stout supports
8 feet apart, is very convenient as a temporary
fence on ground with a level surface. There
should be a barbed wire at the top and another
4 inches from the bottom of the netting. The
netting is more expensive than wires, but costs
much less in the labour of erection, and can be
removed and used elsewhere.
The objection to small woods is confined to
those which require new fencing, and is based
only on expense. As regards the growth of the
trees small woods have advantages over larger
woods. If instead of clear-cutting and replant-
ing a block of sixteen acres in a large wood two
PLANTING 13
separate blocks of eight acres each had been
clear-cut and replanted, the probabilities of
success would have been increased. The larger
the size of the plantations the more easily disease
spreads, and the free circulation of the air in
the centre of large plantations is difficult.
Plantations in the middle of larger woods
should not be of a very small size, such as an
acre or less. The tall trees of the rest of the
wood surround small plots of ground like walls,
excluding unduly light and air. Also the fog
and mist collect in small plots.
Fencing with rabbit-proof netting is a great
addition to the cost of a plantation and is very
frequently useless. Unless the netting is regu-
larly inspected the rabbits will make burrows
under it. In winter the snow drifts against the
netting and the rabbits walk over it. Constant
warfare against the rabbits is a much better
protection to the young trees than netting.
Snares will thin the numbers of the rabbits, but
will not exterminate them. Ferrets must be
also employed. A landowner, before he plants
land near the estate of a neighbour who does
not keep down the rabbits, should consider very
carefully if there is much probability that a
plantation in that position will be renumerative.
14 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
If a plantation is made in a situation where it
is impossible to keep down the rabbits, rabbit-
proof netting is absolutely necessary. A clear
space of two yards wide should be kept outside
the netting to enable woodmen to see if the
rabbits are working under it. The erection of
rabbit-proof netting should be confined to the
properties of planters who are comparatively
indifferent to expense.
The distance apart from each other at which
trees should be planted is a matter of the greatest
importance. For many years most books on
forestry published in England recommended
close-plantingnamely, that the trees should
be planted at 4 or 3 feet or even less apart and
they supported this opinion by the example of
the Continental Forest Departments. More re-
cently this opinion in favour of close-planting
seems to have been somewhat modified. The
losses in the German State Forests from wind-
falls, disease, and injurious insects have been
so appalling as to be almost incredible. These
losses may have been the joint result of many
faults in management, but it is highly probable
that the most serious cause was the unhealthy
condition of the young trees due to too close-
planting.
PLANTING 15
The disadvantages of close-planting are two-
fold ; first the expense, and secondly the effect
on the trees and on the soil.
Trees which are planted together closely,
almost immediately commence a struggle for
existence ; in this struggle a large number of
the trees die. Both theory and experience seem
to justify the view that those young trees which
emerge successfully from the early struggle for
existence may have their vitality permanently
impaired by it, if it begins while the trees are
very young, and therefore weakly. Further, a
struggle for existence of nearly 5,000 young
trees on an acre of poor ground is a serious
strain on the fertility of the soil. Close-planting
increases the warmth in the plantation and
impedes the free circulation of air. Warmth
and exclusion of air are highly predisposing
causes of disease to all trees, but particularly
to very young trees whose vitality has been
impaired by a premature struggle for existence.
The advocates for close-planting urge that a
struggle for existence among the trees is necessary
to stimulate upward growth and to keep the
stems free from lower boughs, which produce
knots and so reduce the value of the timber.
Granting that this is quite accurate, it does not
16 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
follow that a struggle for existence, if it com-
mences very early in the life of the plantation,
may not do more harm than good.
The practical result seems to follow ; namely,
that the best distance at which trees should be
planted is that which their boughs can cover in
four or five years without crowding each other.
By planting at this distance the strain on the
fertility of the soil and on the vitality of the
young trees does not commence until the trees
are thoroughly established. Also at that age
the absence of density does very little harm.
Any small side boughs which then grow die off
later and leave no knots in the boles of the
mature trees.
The actual distance apart of the trees must
be determined by the situation, fertility of the
soil, and the nature of the trees. Some planta-
tions, both of pure larch and of larch and oak
mixed, planted 5| feet apart, have grown very
well. It is hard to conjecture any reason why
in ordinary cases trees should be planted closer
than 5 feet apart.
It is unnecessary to state any dogmatic
rule about the number of feet which is the
proper planting distance, for it is one of the
few subjects connected with tree-planting
PLANTING 17
which every one can test for himself by ex-
periment. It is certainly possible that in some
cases a plantation made with trees originally
planted 5j feet apart, will at twelve years old
be more healthy, with a complete canopy over
the ground, more vigorous, and more able to
resist the wind than a plantation in which the
trees had been planted at a less distance.
There are two cases in which close-planting
may be useful. First, exposed moorlands, for
they are so cold naturally that the young trees
cannot establish themselves without an increase
of warmth, and a heavy mortality must be
expected, so that unless many more trees are
planted than are likely to live, there will not
be a complete crop ; and secondly, situations
where there is a good market for hop poles and
the soil is fairly good. In these situations the
advantage of having early returns makes it
prudent from a financial point of view to incur
some risk of injury to the trees and to the
soil.
It may be urged that according to the argu-
ments already given against close-planting, it
would be better to plant at much wider distances
than 5| feet, say at 8 or 9 feet. The advantages,
it is claimed, would be economy in planting, for
2
18 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
at 8J feet apart, only 600 trees per acre are
required ; and as each tree would have ample
growing space, it might be reasonably hoped
that there would be increased health and power
of resistance to wind. The answer is that very
wide-planting has dangers as great as very close-
planting. Trees planted as far apart as 8 or
9 feet would probably develop strong side-
boughs before they closed together and the
struggle for existence began, and whenever a
tree died or was removed because it was crooked,
there would be a serious gap. In such a planta-
tion the density of crop necessary to secure
vigorous upward growth and freedom from knots
would probably be postponed until it was too
late.
The best time for planting on ordinary soil
is the end of November, after the fall of the
leaf and before the ground has been chilled by
the winter. On very wet soils planting is best
done in late spring. Where the planting is
extensive the work is necessarily, almost always,
carried on continuously throughout the winter
months, whenever the weather is open. During
frost or heavy rain the planting must be stopped.
It is absolutely necessary to protect from frost
or drying winds the plants in the interval be-
PLANTING 19
tween the time when they are lifted in the
nursery and when they are planted in the wood.
On the journey they should be covered with
leaves or sacks. On the arrival at the wood
the bundles should be opened, the plants should
be placed by their heels in a trench and the
roots completely covered with leaves and soil.
No more trees should ever be taken out of the
trench than can be immediately planted. How-
ever open the weather may appear, these pre-
cautions should not be omitted. They are very
inexpensive, so little is lost, even when they are
shown to have been unnecessary. Nothing can
be more useless than planting trees whose roots
have been frosted or dried. In dry ground the
soil is mellowed by the sun and rain if the turf
is removed and the holes are made some weeks
before planting. On damp ground the holes
should be made at the time of planting, other-
wise the rain collects in them.
The ground-plan of the plantation should be
such that even on large areas of rough ground
the workmen have as little difficulty as possible
in finding the right place in which to make the
holes when planting, and afterwards in cleaning
the trees. The distance between the rows and
the distance between the trees in the rows
20 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
should be the same. A convenient and usual
plan is a modification of square-planting.
According to this plan each alternate row com-
mences at a distance from the base-line equal
to half the planting distance. The trees are
diagonal to those on each side, instead of being
parallel as they would be in square-planting.
The quincunx is a ground-plan, according to
which anciently the olive trees in Southern
Europe were planted. It is claimed to be the
best for the health of the trees and the attractive
appearance of the plantation. In Johnson's
Dictionary it is described as " A plantation of
trees, disposed originally in a square consisting
of five trees, one at each corner and a fifth in
the middle, which disposition, repeated again
and again, forms a regular grove, wood, or
wilderness ; and when viewed by an angle of
the square or parallelogram, presents equal or
parallel alleys." It is unsuitable for forestry
generally, but it is a convenient way of laying
out a grove on level ground where it is intended
that there should be no thinning and the amount
of expense and time that can be spent on planting
is not strictly limited.
Planting is done in two ways, by notching
and by holeing. In notching, the turf is cut by
PLANTING 21
a spade and then another cut is made at right
angles to the first cut, the turf is raised by the
spade and the tree inserted at the junction of
the two cuts, and the turf pressed down. This
method of planting is economical and gives
good results where it is practicable. In England
it is often impossible. The spade cannot be
used where the ground is stony or full of roots.
And even where there is turf on the ground it
is sometimes so thick that the soil under it is
always perfectly dry.
In holeing, the soil is first loosened with a
pick and then stirred with a spade. In the hole
so made, the tree is planted and the soil trodden
firmly round the stem. If there is any turf it
is cut into two pieces and placed grass down-
wards on each side of the tree.
The usual height of the plant is about 9 to
18 inches in notching, and 18 to 30 inches in
holeing. In some cases 8-foot plants are used.
Plants which exceed 3 feet in height show a
noticeable increase in cost, weight, and liability
to be shaken by the wind.
It is very important that in the spring follow-
ing the planting each plant should be visited
and the soil near the stem firmly pressed down
by the feet. It is inevitable that some plants
22 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
will have been raised by frost and others loosened
by wind, and unless they are straightened and
made firm they will certainly wither in the
summer.
There is a difference of practice about clearing
young plantations from strong weeds, such as
brambles, gorse, etc. Some planters think that
these weeds do not cause any serious damage,
and that the best plan is to leave the plantation
until the trees are 12 or 15 feet high, by which
time it is expected that the trees have grown
above and killed the undergrowth. It must be
allowed that it is useless to keep trees in a
plantation as clean as those in an orchard, and
that sometimes much money has been unneces-
sarily spent in making plantations look tidy ;
still, it will generally be found that early neglect
of a plantation is false economy. A plantation
from which the undergrowth is not cut, soon
becomes an impenetrable jungle, and the planter
cannot go through it and see the growth of the
trees, and may be quite unaware of numerous
failures in the centre.
Brambles are the most noxious of all weeds.
They pull down the young trees, and by their
thorns chafe the stems and make wounds by
which injurious spores may enter. They should
PLANTING 23
be cut in June, when they are full of sap. Some-
times they renew themselves for five or six years
and are a cause of serious expenditure. Gorse,
heather, and fern protect the plants from frost
and the sun, and unless they press or overtop
the plants, do good. They should be trimmed
or cut out according to the strength of their
growth. Oak stools and elder bushes generally
have such a vigorous growth that they must be
trimmed severely in order to prevent them over-
topping the plants. Fairly long grass is also a
protection against frost and sun, and need not
be cut unless it is coarse and matted so that it
might in winter fall against the plants and
weigh them down.
On damp ground the removal of long grass
and bushes is beneficial. The soil is exposed
to the action of the sun and made drier and
sweeter, and the plants are checked from growing
long and sappy shoots, which with difficulty
stand either frost or wind. On dry ground and
steep banks the soil is liable to be scorched by
the sun ; in such places long grass and bushes
may be a desirable cover.
A nursery for the growth of seedlings is a
great advantage to a planter. The economy
effected by the purchase of seedlings instead of
24 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
transplants is so great that it more than com-
pensates for the cost of cleaning the seedlings and
the losses, and the danger of transplants being
heated or frosted in railway waggons is removed.
The difference in vitality of trees grown on the
estate and those from a nurseryman is generally
very considerable.
If the site chosen is not previously in culti-
vation it should be broken up, and after a fair,
but not heavy, manuring, a crop of potatoes or
roots taken, and after the crop has been lifted
lime spread. The seedlings should be planted in
spring in rows 15 inches apart and 5 inches apart
in the rows. Some planters prefer two-year
seedlings for the nursery to one-year seedlings.
They consider that the losses in the latter are
generally so great as to compensate for the
extra cost of the former.
There are two kinds of nurseries : temporary,
which are usually either on or near the land
intended to be planted, and permanent ones.
Occasionally permanent nurseries are seen with
ornamental gates, and broad gravelled paths
flanked by beds full of rare shrubs and trees.
The owner whose finances enable him to gratify
in this way his aesthetic tastes is much to be
congratulated, but it may be observed that a
PLANTING 25
nursery of this description is a strong indication
that his woods are not managed solely on a
commercial basis and with a view to the realisa-
tion of a profit.
THINNING
27
CHAPTER II
THINNING
THE financial results of woods planted for the
growth of mature trees are largely influenced
by the manner in which the trees have been
thinned. Thinning is the artificial reduction of
the density of a crop.
The objects sought to be attained by careful
management of woods are three : first, the
health of the trees ; secondly, strength to with-
stand gales ; and thirdly, the production of the
largest possible number of trees of a shape and
size which will attract a timber merchant.
These objects are to some extent antagonistic
to each other. In a very open wood the trees
are healthy and sturdy, but the number of trees
in the wood is reduced, they are short in height,
and there are numerous knots in the timber
from the side boughs.
It is in the power of a planter by removing
some trees in a wood to increase the distance
29
30 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
at which the remaining trees stand apart from
each other, or in other words, to reduce the
density of the crop. The necessity of some
reduction in the density is made apparent by a
consideration of what would happen if no reduc-
tion in density was artificially made. In the
absence of any reduction in density, all the trees
would rise for some years in an even height,
like a crop of corn. In a poor, soil there would
be no further growth, the ground would be
matted with roots and exhausted. The few
leaves on the tops of the trees would be insuffi-
cient for respiration, and the result would be
the eventual disappearance of the whole crop.
Even in a more fertile situation the result would
be the same for the majority of the trees namely,
eventual disappearance but the history of the
more vigorous trees would be that they would
rise above the level of the crop and thus obtain
sufficient light and air to support life, and by
the shade of their boughs they would hasten
the death of the remainder. At later stages of
growth, as the existing trees increased in size
they would crowd each other, and further
struggles for existence would arise, until at last,
by the disappearance of all the others, a few
remaining trees would have sufficient light and
THINNING 81
air and also sufficient space in the soil for the
development of their roots.
From this consideration of the issue of a
struggle for existence, uninterfered with by arti-
ficial thinning, it would appear that the advan-
tage of density of a crop is that it encourages
upward growth and freedom from knots, and
that it has the disadvantage that it is a strain
on the fertility of the ground and on the vitality
of the trees.
Throughout the life of the plantation, density
should not be maintained beyond what is abso-
lutely necessary to maintain upward growth and
freedom from knots. If this limitation of density
is exceeded there is, in addition to the risk to
the fertility of the soil and the vitality of the
trees, also a risk of completely stopping diameter
growth. A check on diameter growth is inevit-
able in the period of vigorous upward growth,
but the diameter growth must not be killed.
Experience shows that if growth, either in
height or diameter, is once seriously stopped by
unfavourable conditions, it cannot be restarted
when the conditions are made favourable. The
density of a wood which is ultimately to be
sold at a good price to a timber merchant should
be such as to hasten vigorous upward growth
32 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
and yet keep alive growth in diameter. If the
trees grow up as a crop of lofty poles, they will
probably be blown down by a gale ; and even
if they escape that fate, they will never, to what-
ever extent they may be thinned, attain a size
and shape that will attract an English timber
merchant.
Professor Schwappach, in an address read
before the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society
on August 3rd, 1896, said : " A timber merchant
looks for trees as long, straight, and cylindrical
as possible, with the minimum number of knots."
This statement may be quite accurate in Ger-
many, but it is not an adequate account of an
English timber merchant's requirements. His
ideal is a tree from which he can cut the largest
number of sound planks with a minimum waste.
Length is highly desirable, but freedom from
knots and a good diameter are essential if the
wood is to bring a good price.
A proper density of the crop is the only
practical method of making the trees so grow
that the plantation may realise the best financial
result. Too little density encourages side boughs
and knots and a shortened stem. An excessive
degree of density produces an unhealthy and
valueless crop.
THINNING 33
In a pure larch plantation the risk of de-
struction by the larch disease is a very real one.
The health of the trees should be the first object
of the owner. A free circulation of the air is
the best way of checking disease. If, therefore,
at any time serious signs of disease are present,
the plantation should be thinned until the air
circulates freely. It is possible that a thinning
heavy enough to produce this result may so
reduce the density that it will not be sufficient
to induce upward growth or to prevent the
growth of unsightly side boughs. These dis-
advantages must be accepted by the owner.
Stunted and knotty trees are preferable to trees
destroyed by disease, and if the disease should be
early checked there is some hope, that the trees
may resume vigorous and satisfactory growth.
As a rule, in pure larch plantations the natural
density does not require artificial interference
until the trees reach a height of about 15 feet.
At this period there should be a thinning to
remove all trees that are dead or so completely
suppressed that they are certain to have no
more useful growth, and trees that are seriously
diseased. A slightly diseased tree need not
necessarily be removed, for such frequently
recover.
3
34 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
In districts where there is a remunerative sale
of young trees, as for hop poles, the subsequent
thinnings should be repeated every three years,
until the trees are too big for sale as poles.
In these thinnings the worst trees should
always be selected for removal, and the density
may be reduced until the trees stand so far apart
that the extremities of the boughs only touch
each other. The advantage of these removals
of a fairly large number of trees is that if some
return, at an early period in the growth of a
plantation, is obtained, it makes a great differ-
ence in the financial result. The risk of check-
ing upward growth is not very serious, because
at this early period the young trees have such
vigour that probably the required density would
be soon renewed.
It is an excellent rule to thin larch planta-
tions moderately and often ; therefore, where
time and expense are of minor importance,
subsequent thinnings from the first until a height
of about 25 to 30 feet has been reached may
take place every three years, even in the absence
of a remunerative sale of the removed trees.
In ordinary cases, where time and expense
are of considerable importance, a thinning about
every ten years will be sufficient during the
THINNING 35
period while height-growth is vigorous. A stuffy
feeling of the air in a plantation, lanky stems,
a bark which instead of a dark brown, with
streaks of rich brown, is pale and close, and
roots appearing out of the ground are signs that
the time for a thinning has come. In their
absence there is no necessity to thin merely
because the boughs of the trees interlace. Even
when a thinning is desirable, it may, if financial
reasons make that convenient, be postponed for
one or two years without serious risk, by knock-
ing off the dead lower branches of the larch so
that there may be an additional access of air
to the interior of the plantation.
No definite rules can be laid down about the
distances at which the trees should stand apart
after a thinning. The circumstances of each
plantation are different. In the same planta-
tion there may be groups of poor trees close to
each other, and also groups of good trees. No
prudent owner would remove both good and
bad trees in the same proportions; he would
preserve as many as possible of the good trees
and remove as many as possible of the bad.
The general principle in thinning a plantation
is to remove from it exactly so many trees and
in such situations that those which are left
36 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
should have as far as possible the exact amount
of proper density, namely, the density should
be so close as to encourage upward growth, and
yet not so close as to stop diameter growth.
The roots must have room enough to spread so
that they can withstand the wind. The crowns
must have light enough to be vigorous. All
trees injurious to others of more value than
themselves should be removed. Suppressed trees
need not be removed if they do no harm, and
in some cases they may be useful by preventing
the undue side growth of a vigorous tree, or by
helping to keep the wind out of the plantation.
The density should be reduced to the point that
the upward growth is not so much exaggerated
that the trees become weak and lanky. Healthy
and vigorous crowns will endure without injury
a considerable crowding of their boughs.
Two courses of management are available
when the trees are approaching the end of the
upward growth. If the trees show that they
are not vigorous, and the poverty of the soil
or the exposure of the situation indicate that
really fine timber cannot be reasonably expected,
the best financial result may be obtained by the
omission of any further thinning and a sale of
the timber when height-growth finally ceases.
THINNING 37
Plantations above the 800-foot contour line
should, as a rule, be treated in this way, unless
there are special advantages of soil or situation.
In larch plantations which at fifty to sixty
years of age still show a vigorous growth, the
density of the crop should be removed as soon
as the height- growth is seen to be approaching
the end. At that period the density has done
its work and is of no more use. An effort should
be made to produce that growth in diameter
which makes the trees of considerable value.
By the removal of all the inferior trees the
plantation should be thinned until each of the
remaining trees stands clear of its neighbours.
For fear of damage by windfall this partial
clearance may be effected by two thinnings.
The removal of the density of the crop should
not be delayed until height-growth has ceased,
for at that time there is a reduction of vigour
in the trees and they cannot then produce as
large a diameter growth as they would have
done if full light and air had been admitted into
the plantation a few years previously.
During this last stage in the growth of a
larch plantation the soil will, in most cases, be-
come covered with a growth of broad-leaved
plants. Under favourable circumstances the
38 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
largest and most valuable larch timber may be
produced by trees which, near the end of their
height- growth, have been thinned until each tree
has full light and air for the crown and ample
room for the roots.
In pure oak woods in England, grown in
suitable situations, there is no real risk of disease,
and only a slight risk of damage by windfall.
There is no necessity to remove trees which are
overshadowed by others; they are useful some-
times as underwood. Until the trees are about
40 feet high, no more thinning is required than
the removal at intervals of about ten years of
trees which are crooked and forked. After the
principal part of the height-growth has been
reached a sufficient number of the inferior trees
should be removed to allow the crowns of the
better trees, and especially of any scattered ash,
fair growing space. In about twenty-five years
after a thinning the crowns will again close up,
and another removal of the inferior trees should
be made. As the wood becomes lighter by
these successive thinnings an undergrowth of
hazel and small bushes will cover the ground,
and the wood will present the appearance of
coppice with standards. If the object of the
owner is to obtain timber of the largest size and
THINNING 39
greatest individual value, the trees must be
allowed to grow to full maturity, in a rotation
of 180 or 200 years, and the number of first-
class trees will at the final cutting be between
ten and twenty per acre. It is probable that
in most cases an earlier sale would be more
remunerative, because the annual increment of
an old oak wood may be only small.
Mixed oak and larch plantations are thinned
on the principle that a good oak, when it is
overshadowed by a larch, must be protected by
the removal of the larch. If the threatened oak
is unlikely to grow into a good tree, a larch may
be allowed to replace it. The difficulty in the
management of such a plantation is that the
protection of the oak requires the removal of
some larch at short intervals of two or three
years. Small thinnings are unremunerative, and
therefore liable to be neglected, with the result
that the quick-growing larch overpowers the
slow-growing oak. There will possibly be some
parts of the wood in which the oaks are not
sufficient in number to form a full crop ; these
parts should each be treated as a larch wood.
MIXED AND PURE WOODS
41
CHAPTER III
MIXED AND PURE WOODS
IN the last century pure woods were rarely
planted, except in the neighbourhood of mines,
where some very remunerative pure larch woods
were grown. As a rule most woods were planted
with a mixture of larch and oak with a few
other hardwoods. It was assumed that the oak
had the advantage of being more valuable, and
larch the advantage of quicker growth and
earlier returns, and it was hoped that mixed
woods of oak and larch would combine the
advantages of early returns and great future
val e. The theory was the larch would stimu-
late the upward growth of the oak, and by their
thinnings and final removal provide an early
income, and that when the larch were removed
there would be left on the ground a crop of
valuable oak.
In some woods the theory was successful : the
planter obtained an early income and left for
the benefit of his posterity a valuable crop of
43
44 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
growing oak. In many other woods, originally
planted as woods of oak and larch, the oak have
been smothered by the larch, or at least so
many of them have disappeared that when the
larch was removed only half a crop of oak was
left on the ground. The attempt to grow in
the same w6od slow-growing oak surrounded by
much more numerous quick-growing larch de-
manded constant care in the management of
the woods, and this care was not always exercised.
The present position is this : Financial reasons
generally make a planter reluctant to plant a
pure oak wood, from which there can be no
substantial return for a hundred years. With-
out the use of larch or some other quick-growing
tree it is hard to see how any oak can be planted
under present circumstances, and the example of
many of the mixed woods planted in the last
century show that oak planted among larch
are, in the absence of great care in the manage-
ment, likely to be smothered by the larch.
The result of these difficulties is that the
planting of pure oak has become uncommon, and
mixed woods of oak and larch are diminishing
in number. This reduction in the amount of
oak planting is a matter for regret. The oak
is a noble tree, the pride and characteristic of
MIXED AND PURE WOODS 45
English scenery. A fine oak tree or a fine oak
wood is a source of legitimate pride to the owner.
Even from a financial point of view there is
much to be said for the planting of oak. No
doubt the present price of oak timber, unless
it is of the first quality, is very poor, but all
planting is to some extent a speculation, for no
one can foresee with certainty the price which
timber trees will produce in the future. The
varied qualities of oak strength, elasticity, dura-
bility, and ease in working make it one of the
most useful trees in the world, and there is a
reasonable ground for an expectation that it
may in the future greatly appreciate in value.
Few, except rich men, can plant on any large
scale pure oak woods, but there are in most
properties opportunities of planting oak and
ash on small pieces of land which are better
adapted for them than for larch.
Occasionally very small woods are made on
good land for the sake of game or for the im-
provement of the landscape. These might with
advantage be made of oak and ash. The profit
from such small woods, if there is any, is a
matter for the distant future, and the substitu-
tion of oak or ash for larch will not injure the
planter.
46 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
A planter, if the circumstances of a plantation
give him no chance of pecuniary profit, may as
well plant trees which will grow vigorously for
a hundred and eighty years as trees which
grow for sixty or seventy years.
In spite of the many failures of mixed woods
in the last century, they are a very advantageous
method of planting, if care in management is
exercised and there is no reason why there
should not be careful management. Five or
5 1 feet apart is close enough for the young
trees to be planted. A method once generally
practised was to plant first the oak at the
distances at which it was intended that they
should ultimately stand, and to fill up with
larch to the distance of 3 or 4 feet apart.
The result is, that if any of the oak die, the
remaining oak trees on each side of the dead
one stand apart at excessive distances. A
better method is to increase the number of oak,
so as to have a sufficient number in reserve to
take the place of those which die, are unpromising,
or are smothered.
In this method the oak are planted in the
rows with the larch ; for example, every alternate
row is pure larch, and in the intermediate row
there is an oak and then a larch, or an oak and
MIXED AND PURE WOODS 47
then two larch, according to the quality of the
soil. This method cannot be carried out strictly,
for it sometimes happens that the place assigned
to an oak is stony, or for some other reason
obviously unsuitable; in such a place a beech
is planted. Also, an ash is planted instead of
an oak wherever the ground is more suitable
for ash.
This method of planting oak and larch mixed
should be used wherever the ground gives a
fair chance of good growth for the oak. On
any part of the plantation which is of better
quality pure oak should be planted, and on
the part below the average in quality a crop of
pure larch can be grown.
In mixed woods, made as above, there is
every probability that the oak, protected by
the larch, will grow straight and clean, and the
larch will be more free from disease than when
planted pure.
Mixed planting with larch and oak is done
for the benefit of the oak, and is based on two
reasons. One is cultural : the more rapid growth
of the larch prevents the oak from spreading
and promotes upward growth ; and the other is
financial : the early returns from the larch are
some compensation for the long-deferred harvest
48 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
from the oak. When the land is well suited
for oak the young trees start well, grow quickly,
and soon close up, and the first reason does not
apply. Such land should be planted pure oak.
Mixed planting is most useful when the soil
is somewhat below, in fertility, what is best
suited for oak, and the young oak will probably
require protection, and in addition there is a
ready sale for larch thinnings. In the absence
of such a sale the probability is considerable
that the thinnings will be neglected and the
larch allowed to smother the oak. Local cir-
cumstances can alone show, after careful con-
sideration, whether a proposed plantation should
be pure oak or oak and larch mixed, or pure
larch, or even Scotch fir ; but it will generally
be found that the whole wood, or a part of it,
can with advantage be treated as a mixed
plantation.
In some cases the advantage which larch
derive from mixed planting is an important
consideration. Larch in this country is more
likely to be free from disease and to grow
vigorously to complete maturity if it is sur-
rounded by broad-leaved trees. Hitherto larch
has been most remunerative when it has been
planted pure and felled as a clean-cut at fifty
MIXED AND PURE WOODS 49
or sixty years. At that age the individual trees
have not reached the greatest growth of which
they are capable under favourable circumstances.
The object sought has been to obtain a large
amount of cubic feet of timber in the wood, and
not large trees ; but the timber from trees fifty
or sixty years old is less hard and durable than
that supplied by trees of a greater age. It is
possible that, in the future, as a result of great
destruction of timber during the war, there
will be a considerable appreciation in the value
of larch from which 9 or 12-inch planks of
hard durable timber can be cut. The best way
to grow trees of this size is to plant a mixed
wood, principally with a view of growing oak,
to thin the larch vigorously even at a financial
loss, and to leave a residue of the best larch to
remain with the oak for eighty or ninety years.
The enchanced price per cubic foot may be a
sufficient compensation for the delay in the
returns from the larch, but as the enhancement
is only conjectural it would be hazardous to
sacrifice in the management the oak for the
larch.
In a wood where the number of larch is so
great in proportion to all other trees that it is
substantially a pure larch wood, the introduction
4
50 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
of a few broad-leaved trees can have little
effect in preventing injury by disease. Broad
belts of such trees might prevent injurious
spores from being blown by the winds from
diseased trees to fresh spots, but they would
occupy a large amount of ground and diminish
the returns which the planter had hoped to
receive from a pure larch crop.
A plantation of pure larch is advisable when
the ground is unsuitable for oak, or financial
reasons make quick returns imperative. In this
case the risk of disease must be faced. It cannot
be overlooked, but it is possible to exaggerate
it. The liability to disease is always present.
Diseased trees can be seen in natural Swiss
forests and in the middle of English lawns, but
the worst forms of disease occur only in crowded
artificial plantations. Assuming that the site
of the plantation is suitable for larch, disease
can be kept in check by free circulation of air,
and this is possible if the trees are properly
thinned.
A pure larch wood, if exposed to gales, must
be protected by the introduction of some broad-
leaved trees, either singly or in groups. Few
of these trees grow into good timber, but the
cost of planting them is well repaid by the
MIXED AND PURE WOODS 51
protection from the wind which the larch derive.
Beech and sycamore are quite as good as oak
for giving protection against the wind, and will
thrive on poorer soil. The advantage of planting
oak, where it is possible, is that the planter
has the chance that some of the oak may become
remunerative timber, and also the oak may be
useful for natural regeneration after the removal
of the larch. The introduction of broad-leaved
trees into what would be, if they were absent,
a pure larch plantation, can only be justified
financially if the situation is such that a few
trees can protect from wind a large area. If
a large extent of ground is occupied by such
trees, the protection which they give has been
bought too dearly.
A large plantation of pure larch gives a planter
almost his only chance of a fair remuneration in his
lifetime for his outlay. The risk from disease and
gales is inevitable, but it may be reduced by choos-
ing a favourable site, with free drainage, ample
circulation of air, and protection from gales.
Damp or confined positions in a pure larch
plantation should be planted with those trees
which thrive in these situations. Any land
which is unsuited for larch on account of sterility
of soil, altitude of situation, or exposure to
52 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
violent gales, should be left unplanted by any
one who plants with a hope of profit.
The selection of the best tree to plant after
a crop of pure larch is a serious difficulty.
There are instances where a second crop of
larch has grown well, but they are rare. Most
larch plantations planted after larch either die
off when they are about fifteen years old, or
else suffer from heart-rot to such an extent
that when they are felled it is possible to push
the handle of an axe up the centre of the tree.
The planting of an oak wood after a crop of
pure larch would be a doubtful experiment.
Thus both oak and larch are excluded.
Two suggestions may be made. First, post-
pone replanting for ten or twelve years, and in
the meantime use the land for a sheep-run, and
then replant with another crop of pure larch.
Secondly, where it is not desirable to open the
land to sheep as, for example, when it is part
of a larger wood try the experiment of natural
regeneration. Unless the circumstances are very
unfavourable a certain number of hardwood
seedlings will appear on the ground ; these should
be protected by cutting back any briars or
bushes which encroach on them. When these
natural seedlings have established themselves,
MIXED AND PURE WOODS 53
gaps in the crop should be filled by transplants,
special care being taken that ash are planted in
any spots that are suitable, oak wherever grow-
ing oak seedlings indicate a fair chance of success,
and the rest of the wood filled up with beech
and sycamore.
Experience shows that, in mixed woods of
larch with oak, beech, or sycamore, the larch
have greater vigour, resistance to wind, and
more freedom from disease than in pure larch
woods ; also that larch generally does not
succeed as a second crop after larch. It is
difficult to assign satisfactory reasons for these
facts. Possibly broad-leaved trees offer less
resistance to currents of air than larch, and if
this is so, their presence would be an aid to
ventilation of the plantation. In late growth,
when the trees stand somewhat apart, the
advantage given by the broad-leaved trees is
probably due to their leaves, which quickly decay
and so keep the soil more cool and open than it
would be if either covered with larch leaves or
bare and swept by winds. Agriculture shows
that after successive crops of the same plants
the soil loses something which is essential to
healthy growth. In the forests of Switzerland
larch can grow in large pure woods and maintain
54 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
itself continuously by natural reproduction, but
in England the susceptibility to disease and the
inability to reproduce itself by natural seedlings
indicate that there is a diminution of vitality in
the plants and that the climate and soil are
less suitable than in Switzerland. The com-
paratively high winter temperature and the
dampness of the English climate induce a quicker
growth than on the Continent, and this quicker
growth may impose so great a strain on the soil
that soil exhaustion in England is in a few
years greater than after centuries in Switzerland.
Also, the climate of England may be advantage-
ous to some destructive spores which exist in
the soil or stumps of a felled larch wood. Very
little observation on this point has been recorded,
and it is impossible to say what is the least
period during which the site of a previous larch
wood should remain unplanted, or to indicate
any effective and practical methods for shorten-
ing this period.
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES
CHAPTER IV
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES
THERE are two varieties of oak in English woods,
the pedunculate and sessile. In the peduncu-
late variety the acorns are borne on stalks and
the leaves are either sessile or borne on very
short petioles. The leaves of the sessile variety
are borne on a petiole nearly half an inch long,
and the acorns are sessile. It is probable that
there are some sub-varieties, for it is not un-
common to see in woods of pedunculate oak
some trees which are conspicuous by the smooth-
ness and light colour of their bark and other
trees whose leaves are borne on long petioles.
The pedunculate variety is by far the most
common, and it is generally believed that most
of the famous old oak trees were of the pedun-
culate variety.
The varieties of oak do not, so far as is known,
possess any difference in the quality of the timber,
nor is there any difference in the price realised.
It is impossible to determine, once a tree is felled,
67
58 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
whether it belongs to the sessile or pedunculate
variety. Unless the intended plantation is in a
district where the sessile variety grows well,
the pedunculate variety should be planted, for
if there is any superiority in use for structural
purposes and durability it belongs to the pedun-
culate variety.
Oak timber of the finest quality is nearly
always found only in trees which have grown
isolated or as standards over coppice. Such
trees will usually have short boles and large
branching heads, but occasionally, and on land
particularly suitable for oak, they grow as
vigorous trees, with tall clean boles, and the
timber from such trees is of exceptional size
and quality.
Oak woods have generally been formed by
planting, but some have been formed by plough-
ing the ground and sowing acorns. It is not
probable that sowing has any advantage in
point of economy over planting.
This method of growing oak was probably
adopted in deference to an opinion that oak
grown in situ made better timber than trees
which had suffered the check of being trans-
planted. There are no experiments from which
it is possible to decide if there are any grounds
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 59
for supposing that trees grown in situ from
acorns do in fact make better timber than trans-
plants. The disadvantage of forming oak woods
by the sowing of acorns is, that it is difficult to
preserve the acorns in a large plantation from
the ravages of mice and other vermin, and
unless the seedlings are cleaned by hoeing they
are in great danger of being smothered by the
grass.
Oak does not generally grow to much value
on poor land. It should not be planted on any
soils except those which are somewhat above
the average quality found in plantations, or on
which there has been a previous crop of fair
oak.
In the West Midland counties along the
Welsh border there are many thousand acres
of self-sown oak woods on stony hill-sides, nearly
all of the pedunculate variety. The boles are
of fair height, free from boughs, and the timber
is of excellent quality, but the trees are small
in size one of 11 inches quarter-girth under
bark is above the average. There is no wood
which now sells so badly as small-sized oak.
These woods rarely produce an annual gross
income of 4s. per acre, 2s. 6d. to 3s. is as much
as most of them produce. It is hard to see,
60 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
while prices remain at their present low level,
any remedy for this poor return. These woods
have no annual expenditure except the main-
tenance of the fences and the payment of rates
and taxes. Any change in their condition, such
as clear- cutting and planting the cleared site
with larch, would involve considerable expense,
therefore probably the best plan of management
is to leave them for the present unaltered. A
rise in the price of second-class oak timber or
of oak bark, or a revival of charcoal burning,
might make them more remunerative.
Good loam such as is suitable for tillage, if
free from any stagnant water, is the best soil
for oak, but fine oak is not confined to such
land. There are several districts in England
famous for the excellent quality of the oak
grown in them, and some of these have a sandy
soil. Some light soils burn up in a hot summer
and could not grow fine oaks, while other light
soils are always cool. Gravelly soils would
probably be unsuitable, and clay soils would
probably be suitable, unless they were liable to
crack in summer. These probabilities should be
considered before a decision to plant oak is made,
but the past history of the land, when attainable,
gives a much better notion of its suitability for
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 61
growing oak than can be gained by inspection
of the soil.
In the southern counties the sessile variety
is said to grow more freely and with greater
length of stem than the pedunculate variety on
light gravelly land, but to be more liable to
shakes.
Ash is the most remunerative tree grown in
English woods. It commands a ready sale and
good prices. As a rule it grows well and seeds
itself freely in any soil which is of fair fertility
and damp, if free from sourness and under the
800-foot contour line. Some very fine trees
are found on limestone formation, but more
usually it grows quickly where there is lime,
until it is fifty or sixty years old, and then is
checked and becomes liable to decay. If ash
on limestone is cut down as soon as growth
slackens, the timber is usually of excellent quality.
It is a capricious tree, and sometimes refuses to
grow well on land which seems suitable for it.
It generally grows scattered among other trees
in a wood, or in small groups on banks in pasture
lands, or as hedgerow timber. It is rarely seen
in large groups or in pure woods. The seed
(called keys) germinates in the second year
after it is formed. It is kept, mixed with sand,
62 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
during the first winter and sown in the following
April in beds 4 feet wide. The young seedlings
bear transplanting very well. In every wood,
where the ground is suitable, some ash should
be planted. After the early stages of growth
ash requires ample space, and at every thinning
should be freed from the encroachments of the
adjoining trees. Fifteen feet is the minimum
distance apart of ash 25 feet high, unless the
situation is exceptionally favourable and the
trees have strong as well as tall, clean boles.
When the trees have finished height-growth
they should be at least 20 to 24 feet apart.
There is a strong belief among woodmen that
self-sown ash are not so liable to be bitten by
rabbits as transplants.
Among the poplars the variety sold by nursery-
men under the name of Black Italian seems to
have entirely superseded the English Black
Poplar, as being of quicker growth and improved
quality. It is a tree of extraordinary rapidity
of growth, and attains great size. The timber
is soft wood, but it is strong, does not splinter,
nor easily catch fire. It is very useful for in-
side work, such as flooring, as boards for railway
wagons, or as wooden breaks and packing-
cases. It grows in damp soils, requires an
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 63
ample quantity of space, and likes a limestone
subsoil. Its defect from a financial point of
view is that, unless it grows in an easily acces-
sible place, the great size makes the cost of
haulage extremely high. A butt weighing
many tons cannot be hauled out of a hollow or
across soft ground without great labour. In
such cases the haulage may cost the timber
merchant as much as the tree. On damp
ground adjoining a road Black Italian Poplar
planted 10 or 12 feet apart would be a very
remunerative crop.
Alders, whether they grow naturally by the
side of streams or as planted trees on the damp
spots in plantations, are a remunerative crop
in any district where clogging is practised.
They grow fit for the market in twenty-five or
thirty years, and occupy ground which other-
wise would be worthless. The cost of haulage
is slight, therefore they can be sold profitably
though growing in a situation where in the case
of other trees the cost of haulage would be
almost prohibitive. The reason of this ease of
haulage is that they are converted near the
wood and the setts are stacked and allowed to
dry before removal, and thus there is no neces-
sity to remove superfluous weight or bulk.
64 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
Another advantage of alder is that they repro-
duce themselves freely.
Beech, by the custom of the county, is timber
in Buckinghamshire. The large beech woods
grown on the chalk hills supply the timber for
the kitchen chairs and furniture which are
made at High Wycombe and the villages near
the woods. These woods are managed on the
following system : Each wood is visited every
eight or sixteen years, or some other regular
time. All the mature trees are then felled and
the other trees thinned. Every portion of the
wood has on it trees of every age in regular
gradation, and the cutting is managed so that
as an age class grows older its numbers become
less. The grandfathers of the wood are cut out
to make way for the fathers who, in their turn,
become grandfathers. The trees are very largely
self-sown. Sixty to eighty years are the periods
of growth. These woods can, under careful
management, produce a regular income of l
to 80s. per acre.
Outside Buckinghamshire there are few woods
of pure beech, and the prices for beech timber
were prior to the war generally unremunerative.
The merit of the beech, from a planter's point
of view, is that it will grow in the shade of other
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 65
trees and therefore can be planted to supply
the place of natural underwood where that
fails.
The value of the beech for sylvicultural pur-
poses has been placed very high by continental
professors of forestry. It has been said to
protect the fertility of the soil by its close canopy,
and to increase it by the fall of leaves of con-
siderable manurial value. If it could be proved
that by underplanting with beech, good oak
could be profitably grown in England, on land
which otherwise would be of insufficient fertility,
it would be necessary to concede these claims.
The differences between the conditions in Ger-
many and England are so great that it is only
with great caution that practices usual in Ger-
many can be applied usefully here. In a great
part of Germany the soil is sandy, and the
climate very dry in summer. Here sandy soils
are the exception, and the climate is damp.
Here, when oak woods are partially cleared near
the end of the rotation, the soil is soon covered
with a natural crop of hazel and oak bushes
which can be sold as crate-wood, but if this
natural underwood fails to appear, or there are
places which have become vacant by the death
of trees, under-planting with beech may be
5
66 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
useful. In two other cases beech may be profit-
ably planted under other trees. Where there
is an exceptionally good sale for immature larch
and the owner is unwilling to clear-cut and
replant, he may severely thin, to the extent of
two thirds or more of the crop, and then fill up
the wood with beech. The soil would probably
become dried and impoverished unless it was
protected by an under-growth, and natural under-
growth would probably not come in a larch
wood severely opened out. An oak wood of
thirty or forty years which flags because the
ground is not quite good enough for it may also
be benefited by a severe thinning and under-
planting with beech. The leaves keep the ground
clear of weeds and the stems shade the stems
of the oak and prevent the growth of lateral
boughs.
Severe thinning followed by under-planting
with beech is an expensive and rather risky
experiment. There is the risk of damage by
wind, and also the risk that the reduction in
the number of the trees may not be repaid by
a sufficient enhancement in the size and quality
of the remaining trees. The under-crop may
grow so freely as to deprive the first crop of
sufficient nutriment. The propriety of under-
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 67
planting with beech can be decided only after
careful consideration of the crop, soil, and
future market price of each wood. The financial
return from beech planted as an under-crop will
generally be small. If felled at the same time
as the first crop, they will probably be small-
sized ; if allowed to remain, they will have been
so much damaged by the felling of the first crop
as to be of little selling value.
There is no doubt of the benefit given by
beech leaves in keeping the soil of a wood cool
and free from weeds ; their manurial value has
not been proved.
Beech is not an easy tree to plant in a new
wood. The young trees suffer from exposure
to the sun, and a hot summer kills many of
them unless they are protected by the shade of
older trees.
The value of the beech tree to the English
planter who lives outside the counties where
there is a local industry in beech, is that it is,
with the exception of silver fir, the only shade-
bearing tree which he can plant.
Sycamore, when sound, clean, and of large
size, is a valuable tree, but in ordinary sizes
and with boughs on the stem it is almost un-
saleable. Thinnings are worthless, the value
68 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
comes only from the final fall. The hardiness
of the tree and the ease with which it can be
raised from seed make it useful for filling up
any small patch in a wood, on which it is doubt-
ful if other trees would grow. It will thrive
on any soil or situation that is likely to be
found in a plantation. It is an excellent tree
for shelter ; it stands the wind well ; the
leaves do not cast so deep a shade as beech ;
self-sown seedlings of oak and ash are not
smothered by it. Almost every year a syca-
more growing in the open has a good crop of
keys. These, if gathered in October and
November and planted in rows in a garden in
4-foot wide beds, produce several hundred seed-
lings at a nominal cost. In the second April
after sowing the seedlings should be transplanted
in rows 15 inches apart and 4 inches apart in
the rows. In two or three years later they are
fit to be planted in the woods. Although syca-
more is generally not a remunerative tree, it
is useful for planting to a limited extent.
Elm has two main varieties, the small-leaved,
called the English elm, and the large-leaved,
called the Scotch or Wych elm. The English
elm seeds either not at all or only on very rare
occasions; it is propagated by suckers. The
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 69
Wych elm seeds and has no suckers. There is
a bewildering number of sub-varieties. Every
kind of elm is better adapted for hedgerows
than for planting in woods. In most years elm
has a very poor sale, if offered in large quantities.
However, in some localities there is a good sale
of limited quantities for local use, if the haulage
is easy. As a remunerative sale of elm is
generally strictly local, that kind should be
planted which the local wheelwrights prefer.
The main point of interest about larch for
a planter is the difficulty of growing it free from
disease. In the early part of the last century
millions of larch were planted, particularly in
Scotland and in the counties of Cumberland
and Westmoreland. If these woods had grown
to maturity in a healthy condition, or if it had
been found profitable to grow successive crops
of larch on the same soil, it would have been
proved that timber-growing in England could
be highly successful. Even now, after taking
into consideration the grave risk of disease, it
is probable that in most districts larch is the
only kind of tree which can be grown to a profit
in large plantations. So that in most cases, if
financial considerations are important, the alter-
native is either to plant larch or not plant at all.
70 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
The risk of disease can be materially reduced
by the choice of a situation suitable to larch
and by securing, through thinnings, a free
circulation of air in the plantation ; as to which,
see p. 33, supra.
Larch grows best in situations which are
slightly damp and where the soil is freely porous,
as on banks. The quality of the land should
be similar to that of a fair hill sheep-walk. Rich
ground is apt to produce timber of a soft, spongy
quality, susceptible to disease. Dry land facing
the south would in most cases be so liable to be
burnt in a hot summer that it would be hazardous
to plant it with larch. Land covered with
heather rarely produces a satisfactory crop.
Two situations are almost certainly fatal, namely,
damp ground on a water-logged subsoil, such
as is frequently found on the flat top of moor-
lands, and low-lying ground liable to mist and
late frosts in spring and to a damp warmth in
summer.
European larch is grown from seed collected
either in the United Kingdom or on the Con-
tinent. Seeds from Switzerland and the Tyrol
are preferred to seeds from Scandinavia and
Germany. In the hope, that seeds taken from
vigorous trees growing at moderate altitudes in
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 71
the native forests of larch would produce trees
of great health and resistance to disease, many
persons have sown larch carefully collected in
Switzerland or the Tyrol, but the results have
often been indecisive. There is little informa-
tion about the influence which the seed has on
the future tree as regards health, rapidity of
growth, and quality of timber. There is no
consensus among planters that there is any
proof that Continental is superior to native
seed, and it is believed that nurserymen, a
class whose practical knowledge makes their
opinion valuable, consider that better trees are
produced in England by English and Scotch
seed than by Continental seed.
Japanese larch are not immune from disease,
but they seem to have justified the claim that
they are less susceptible to disease and in early
life, at least, have a more vigorous growth
than European larch. The seedlings are more
expensive than European larch, and they are
more liable to be killed by a prolonged drought.
The value of mature timber grown in England
has not yet been ascertained. Therefore, until
further information about it is available, this
larch should be planted only experimentally by
an English planter, or when there is some reason
72 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
for thinking that European larch would not
succeed.
Douglas fir is the most promising of the more
recent introductions. It grows quickly and to
a great size. The only known defect is that
it has a poor resistance to the wind, and when
it grows above the level of a plantation is liable
to lose the leader. The value of the mature
timber has not yet been proved in the market.
There are in England a considerable number
of old trees, but it is believed that no mature
plantations of Douglas fir have yet been offered
for sale to timber merchants.
Douglas fir requires a soil slightly more damp
than what is best suited for larch, and a position
free from strong winds. The growth is very
doubtful in a wet situation or where there is
limestone. The trees should be planted at least
6 feet apart and thinned heavily during the
last years of the pole stage.
There are two varieties, the Oregon green
variety, usually planted, and the Colorado or
glaucous variety, which is much slower in growth
than the Oregon, but is said to stand the wind
better.
Scotch fir are capable of forming very large
pure woods self-sown, and examples of such
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 73
woods can be seen in Surrey. A great part of
that county consists of large and extremely
barren commons of heather and sandy soil. As
long as cattle browsed the commons, no trees
could grow in any numbers. During the last
century the neighbourhood of London made a
great change : villas replaced cottages and poor
farms became residential properties. The habit
of pasturing cattle on these barren commons
greatly decreased, with the result that an amazing
growth of young fir trees sprung up as soon as
they were no longer browsed by cattle.
Scotch fir woods stretch for miles from the
neighbourhood of Sandown racecourse. The
ground under the trees is covered to the depth
of some inches with a deposit of fir needles;
sometimes not a blade of grass is to be seen.
The trees are close together, with clean boles
and no side branches.
The state of these woods show that Scotch
fir can grow in perfect health when the trees
are not thinned artificially but allowed to thin
themselves by a struggle for existence.
Scotch fir sells for a poor price, unless the
wood has a cheap haulage to a colliery so that
it can be sold for pit-props.
Scotch fir of about sixty-years growth or less
74 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
is coarse-grained and poor in quality. Lengthen-
ing the rotation to eighty or one hundred years
produces a considerable improvement in the
timber, but even then Scotch fir grown in Eng-
land is not more than equal to average foreign
deal, and the price does not compensate for
the length of the rotation.
Planting Scotch fir cannot be recommended.
The price is unremunerative ; the tree is very
liable to be broken by the snow. On sandy
soils there is the grave risk of destruction by
fire of the young plantation. The ground is
covered with a dry herbage, which is very in-
flammable, and a fire in a young Scotch fir
plantation is unmanageable.
If it is decided to plant Scotch fir care should
be taken that the seedlings should be grown
from seeds collected in Scotland. The English
and Continental varieties produce timber dis-
tinctly inferior to trees grown in Scotland.
A self-sown wood of Scotch fir on poor land
costs nothing, and therefore is an advantage to
the owner of the land, even if the financial
returns are slight. It is better than the poor
herbage which preceded it. Special circum-
stances, such as a good market for pit-props
and a cheap haulage, may justify the expense
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 75
of making a plantation. A few Scotch fir in a
wood are an ornament in winter when the other
trees have lost their leaves, and give a warm
shelter to game. It rarely produces in England
timber capable of making good planks and
beams until it is much older than larch of the
same size would be. As a rule, a larger profit
will be made by selling a wood as soon as it is
fit for pit-props and poles than by thinning
and allowing the best trees to remain to form
large timber.
Spruce is liable to be blown down in gales,
for the roots are close to the ground. It is not
often injured by snow, for the boughs bend
under the weight and allow the snow to slip
off. The timber generally sells better than
Scotch fir. It may be usefully planted in
sheltered places which are damp and not good
enough for ash, and sometimes in such situations
it grows to a great size.
Sitka spruce is a faster growing tree than
the common spruce. Although the value of the
mature timber has not yet been proved and it
can be planted only as an experiment, yet it
offers a reasonable prospect of being remunera-
tive if it is planted as an alternative to alder
or Black Italian poplar where the local circum-
76 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
stances make the planting of either of these
undesirable.
Corsican fir is a tree which has obvious
disadvantages. It is difficult to transplant ;
heavy losses are frequent. The timber is coarse
and hard to work. It can be planted usefully
only in exposed positions as a wind-screen. It
is very hardy when once established.
Silver fir bears shade well, grows quickly,
attains a large size. It offers no attractions to
timber merchants, and is a most unremunera-
tive tree. The forests of the Austrian Tyrol
and Styria were originally almost entirely silver
fir. Spruce has been introduced as more re-
munerative. In these countries it is usual for
the timber merchants to require a guarantee
that not more than 20 per cent, of the crop is
Silver fir. Under the most favourable circum-
stances the quality of the timber is poor. It
was introduced into England three hundred
years ago. It has never been planted to a
large extent. From the difference of the
botanical names, Picea excelsa (Spruce) and
Abies pectinata (Silver fir), it is apparent that
botanists can observe some marked difference
between them, but to most people they appear
to be very similar and not more distant
NOTES ON PARTICULAR TREES 77
from each other than varieties of the same
species.
It would be tedious to discuss the different
kinds of coniferous trees, seedlings of which are
offered in the nurserymen's catalogues. Some
of them, like Weymouth pine, have been known
for many years, and others are of more recent
introduction. A planter to whom financial con-
siderations are of importance should confine
himself to those trees which experience shows
grow well in England, and produce timber
attractive to timber merchants. Other trees
should be left for the plantations of rich men
who are patriotic enough to make experiments
for the benefit of posterity.
PLANTING FOR SHELTER
CHAPTER V
PLANTING FOR SHELTER
THE climate of a country is principally due to
causes which cannot be modified, such as the
distance from the equator, the prevailing winds
which may be scorching, genial, or cold and
to the elevation above sea-level. In addition
to these causes, there are some subsidiary causes
of climate which can be modified. Among
these secondary causes forests are very im-
portant.
Forests, by their leaves, protect the soil from
the sun and from rain. They act as a covering
between the sun and the soil, so that during
the day the heat is hindered from reaching the
soil and at night the radiation of heat from the
soil is less than when the soil is unprotected.
The leaves also protect the soil from being
splashed by the rain. The dead leaves and
vegetation act as a sponge : they absorb a
considerable portion of the rain and release it
gradually.
fi 81
82 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
In some countries the rays of the sun strike
the ground with great heat, and the rain during
most of the year is entirely absent and for short
periods falls in torrents. On the hill-sides of
such countries, if there are no forests, the soil
is baked dry by the sun ; and when the rain
falls torrentially, it washes the soil into the
valleys. In the absence of woodland areas
which could retain the water and release it
gradually, the rivers are generally empty, and
when the torrential rains come they are turned
into floods, which disappear shortly after the
cessation of the rains.
Woods are beneficial to the climate in any
country where the sun's rays are very strong
and the rain falls at long intervals and in tor-
rential downpours. They are injurious if the
warmth of the sun is less than is desirable, and
there is a regular and excessive rainfall.
Northern Africa and parts of Syria are in-
stances of countries whose climate has been
injuriously affected by the removal of forests.
There are also instances of benefits derived from
the removal of forests. The barbarians who
attacked the declining Roman Empire are
recorded to have frequently crossed the Danube
and the Rhine with their wagons on the ice.
PLANTING FOR SHELTER 83
These rivers are now frozen across only at long
intervals. There is reason to believe that the
climate of Germany is now much warmer than
it was in ancient times. The removal of the
forests has allowed the rays of the sun to reach
the soil and warm it.
In the British Isles it is unlikely that forests
can produce any general effect on the climate,
nor is it desirable that they should have any
such effect. The soil requires no protection
from the rays of the sun and the heavy rainfall
preserves the springs without the assistance of
forests. No injury to the general climate is to be
anticipated from an increase of woodland area ;
but in those hilly situations which are naturally
inclined to suffer from rain, large plantations
may locally have an injurious effect by lowering
the temperature and increasing fog and damp-
ness.
In this climate woods have a great value in
some cases, because they ameliorate local con-
ditions by giving a protection against the force
of the wind. On many hill-sides the sheep
spend most of their time in a gale of wind. A
substantial protection from the wind increases
the health and comfort of the sheep and gives
the more nutritious grasses a chance of growth.
84 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
On hill farms judiciously planted woods mitigate
the cold and prevent the crops from being
flattened by the winds.
Woods planted on hill land for shelter can
hardly be expected to produce remunerative
timber, especially if they are above the 1,000-
foot contour-line. The conditions are not
favourable to the growth of trees and the cost
of haulage is generally very high from these
woods.
Very commonly long narrow belts, composed
principally of conifers, have been planted for
shelter. These belts are extremely ugly, and
the cost of fencing is excessive. The shelter
from the wind which they give is very little.
Instead of giving protection they have the
appearance of requiring protection. Many of
the trees die, and the rest are sickly and stunted.
There is no reasonable chance of growing re-
munerative timber in narrow belts.
If an owner decides to incur the expense of
making a narrow shelter belt, beech is the best
tree to be planted. In case the beech do not
grow, sycamore may be used. Beech are very
hardy, and if their fences are allowed to go
down as soon as the trees are safe from
injury, the sheep and cattle find under their
PLANTING FOR SHELTER 85
boughs a pleasant shade from the flies in
summer and there is some protection from the
wind.
Larch, if planted in a shelter belt, should be
thinned until every tree stands isolated from his
neighbours. Trees grown in this way develop
strong roots and side boughs, so that they are
well anchored and form a good wall against
the wind.
The advantage of beech over larch is that
they live longer. Beech belts planted in the
early years of the last century are still vigorous
at 1,500 feet above sea level. Scotch fir should
be avoided on account of their liability to be
broken by snow.
The benefit given to the adjacent land by
well-planned plantations is most obvious on hill-
land, but there are few situations where the
comfort of the live stock and the security of
the crops does not, to some extent, depend on
protection against the wind. On flat lands the
winds blow with great force and keenness, and
if they are not checked by trees and plantations
they may have a very injurious effect. A narrow
depression in the land sometimes acts as a
funnel, and even a moderate wind rushes down
it. In such a case a plantation at the top of
86 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
the depression may materially improve the tem-
perature of the lower land.
Caution must be used in making plantations
on low land, for shelter from the wind is not
always desirable. Drying winds are often bene-
ficial ; if they are excluded and the sunlight
obstructed, damp land may become sour.
FINANCE
87
CHAPTER VI
FINANCE
A QUESTION that is frequently asked is, " Does
timber-planting pay ? " Without an explana-
tion of what is meant by the question it is
impossible to give a clear answer, and yet the
hesitancy to give a clear answer is taken often
as an admission that timber-planting does not
Pay-
In the financial papers one may occasionally
see the expression that at the present rate of
interest it does not pay to invest in the ordinary
stocks of English Railways. In this context
the expression means, Is it not possible to find
other investments which are equally safe and
yet produce a higher rate of interest ? If the
expression is used in this sense about timber-
planting the answer must be in the negative.
Timber-planting, with the best fortune, can pro-
duce only a low interest and it is not a safe
investment. The trees are exposed to the vicis-
89
90 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
situdes of weather and fire, and their realisation
is difficult and purely speculative, for no one
can say with certainty what will be the price
of timber many years hence.
The views expressed in these pages are : First,
the future will show no substantial difference
in returns from the past ; any difference in
prices will probably be counterbalanced by cor-
responding differences in the cost of labour and
public burdens. Secondly, timber-planting can
only in very rare cases show a financial result
which a chartered accountant would accept as
a profit. In spite of these disadvantages, timber-
planting has two considerable advantages, which,
however, cannot be realised unless the wood-
lands are managed with great economy and
unless they are in private hands, so that a large
proportion of the supervision is given by the
proprietor and not charged against the wood-
lands as an item on the debit side of the account.
Assuming the conditions of economy in manage-
ment and partly unpaid supervision, wood-
lands are a convenient form of accumulation at
a moderate rate of interest, and also they provide
a useful means for the investment of small
sums which otherwise might be wasted.
Very few persons would be content to invest
FINANCE 91
their money in shares of a company formed
for the purpose of buying land and planting
on it. During the growth of the trees there
would be no dividend and constant expenditure,
and this period of postponement of dividends
might last for sixty or eighty years.
Therefore it must be admitted that timber-
growing does not pay, if the question means,
Does it produce a high rate of interest, or is it
attractive to an investor who wishes to have
a safe income ?
Timber-growing, however, pays well if it is
regarded as a form of accumulation. It is free
from those practical difficulties which frequently
make the results of accumulation far less than
might be anticipated from a consideration of
the mathematical results of compound interest.
Many testators have directed by their wills
that sums of money should be accumulated at
compound interest. The result has nearly always
disappointed their hopes that there would, one
day, be a fund approximately equal to the sum
shown in interest tables as due from compound
interest at a moderate rate.
It is in practice impossible to invest dividends
immediately on their receipt. There are always
expenses of taxation, stamps, commission, and
92 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
brokerage. There are also difficulties in finding
suitable investments.
Well-planted and well-managed woods save
their owner from the usual misfortunes that
attend the accumulation of small yearly sums
for long periods. They incur no broker's charges
or commission. The yearly increment of the
woods is stored in the trees themselves, so that
there is not the difficulty of continually finding
new investments for the income received. The
trees grow without labour by the owner, and
in addition to any financial gain he has the
satisfaction of having fine woods, the result of
his own careful management.
Trees have the disadvantage that they are
liable to destruction by fire, storm, and disease,
but there can be no form of investment which
is free from all risk ; all that is claimed for
timber-planting is that as a method of accumu-
lation it compares favourably with any other form.
A landowner who succeeded to an estate in
early life as soon as he reached his majority
planted with pure larch an area comparatively
large for the size of the property. The planta-
tion grew well, and when the trees were fifty-
five years old they were sold and the proceeds
realised some thousands of pounds. Mathe-
FINANCE 93
matically considered the transaction was a fair
success, commercially considered it was a very-
great success. The owner received a sum vastly
greater than it is probable that he would have
made if he had tried to accumulate in securities
for fifty-five years the expenses attributable to
the planting.
Planting has also other financial advantages.
It is a ready way of employing usefully small
sums which a landowner would not trouble to
invest, and which if not used in planting might
very probably be wasted. Men engaged in
planting are often required on an estate in other
ways, and planting gives them occupation during
many months when it would be otherwise diffi-
cult to find them work.
Accumulation, in the form of tree-planting,
can be profitable only if the length of the rota-
tion is not excessive taking into account the
price ultimately realised. In a long rotation
the expenses accumulate to a large amount, and
unless the prices realised by the mature timber
are high, it may possibly be that instead of a
profit the expenses overtop the receipts. In a
short rotation success is possible, even if the
prices are low, but in a long rotation high prices
are essential.
94 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
At present prices, larch with a rotation of
less than seventy-five or eighty years may be a
profitable form of accumulation.
Oak woods requiring a rotation of 120 or
150 years may pay if there should be a con-
siderable rise in the price of oak timber. At
present prices the expenses will during the
rotation accumulate to a much greater sum
than can be realised by the sale of the timber.
A timber planter has also this advantage over
other investors, that his capital is not likely to
depreciate violently. The fall in the capital
value of all first-class investments has been
remarkable. Some authorities whose opinion
is entitled to respect have expressed the opinion
that a serious rise in the price of timber is
certain. The opinion is founded on the expected
arrival of a timber famine and on the regular
appreciation during the last fifty years of timber
in the markets of the world. Unfortunately
there are some considerations which diminish
the probability of much rise in price. A timber
famine has often been predicted and has never
yet come. It is true that the consumption of
timber greatly exceeds the growth in the forests
which are now commercially accessible, but it
is possible that greater economy of conversion,
FINANCE 95
or the substitution of metal work for timber,
may enable the supply of timber to satisfy the
demand. Any invention which reduced the cost
of transport would open to the commerce of the
world enormous forests in America, Russia, and
Siberia. Even if for the sake of argument it
is admitted that the supply of timber will
diminish and a rise in the price follow, it would
remain uncertain, how far this rise will be
counteracted by the tendency of modern legis-
lation to increase the taxation of land, and how
much of any increase in price will be taken by
the feller, the hauler, and the timber merchant,
and what will be left for the grower of the trees.
The conclusion to be gained by a consideration
of all the probabilities seems to be that a serious
fall in the price of timber is improbable, and
that a planter may, without being unduly
sanguine, entertain some expectation of a rise.
But even a large rise in price does not neces-
sarily mean a large increase in the profits of a
timber grower. In February 1917 the Govern-
ment paid 6s. or 7s. per cubic foot for sawn
oak planks, and Is. 9d. per cubic foot for oak
trees identical in size and quality with the
trees from which the planks were sawn. From
this example a planter can see that the grower
96 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
of timber may sometimes have a very small
share in an extraordinary rise in the price of
converted timber.
In timber-planting there is, on the debit side
of the account, a large initial cost for planting,
an annual loss of the land, and an annual ex-
penditure for maintenance, rates and taxes, while
the receipts are many years later in date than
the main part of the items on the debit side.
The accounts are made either by reducing all
expenses and receipts to their present value at
a selected rate of interest as at the date of the
planting, or all expenses and receipts are reckoned
at compound interest until the date when the
wood is finally felled. The profit or loss may
be shown either by the rate of interest selected
or by the difference between the incomings and
outgoings reduced to the same moment.
There are various mathematical formulae for
finding the net financial result of timber-
planting. These are valuable in an inquiry
into the past financial history of a wood if all
expenses and receipts from planting to the final
fall have been carefully recorded. When they
are used for calculating the probable future
result of planting a wood they are of only slight
value. All future receipts, expenses, and rates
FINANCE 97
of growth are uncertain. The figures for them
stated in the accounts are at the best only
probable guesses. The mathematical accuracy
of the process gives a false air of real accuracy,
for it tends to conceal the fact that the whole
reasoning is based on guesses and not on results.
Accounts of profit and loss in timber-planting
have probably very little influence on most
owners when they consider a plan of timber-
planting. They recognise that as regards them-
selves personally these accounts are of no value.
There is so little probability that their life will
extend to the maturity of the trees, that for
them there can be no items on the receipt side
of the account.
In most cases the planter is willing to consider
the initial cost of planting as a loan by himself,
free of interest, to the wood. When the land
planted is the site of a recently felled wood, it
would in most cases be unfair to charge in the
accounts of the new wood an agricultural rental
for the site, because the cost of making such
land capable of producing any agricultural rent
is almost prohibitive.
The future history of an intended plantation
can only be told by the past history of other
plantations grown under similar circumstances.
7
98 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
It may be assumed that the intended wood will
not be more successful than the most successful
wood of the same class which is known to have
grown within one or two miles of it. And,
taking this known wood as a maximum, from a
consideration of site, soil, situation, and exposure,
a fair guess may be made about the final crop
of the intended wood.
Planting a piece of land which is not known
to have previously produced a successful crop
of trees, and is more than a few miles distant
from any similar piece of land which has pro-
duced such a crop, is experimental.
The difficulties which a planter has in attempt-
ing to forecast the result of planting may be
realised by comparing his position with that of
a farmer. The advantages which the farmer
has are very great. He knows the average crop
that the field has yielded and the time of harvest,
the only important point which is in doubt is
the market-price of the produce.
In case of planting trees which, like oak,
take at least a century to mature, it is useless
to make any forecast about the result of the
planting. The changes which a century will
bring are incalculable. Oak planting is justified
by considerations which cannot be expressed in
FINANCE 99
figures, such as belief in its rare qualities and
a hope for improved prices in the future.
In the case of planting larch, it is possible
to make some approximate guesses about the
date of harvest and amount of produce, and
it is not unreasonable to assume that the
market-price of the produce will, when the
plantation is mature, be at least no lower than
it is now.
There are no statistics available to show the
date of the maturity of larch or the quantity of
timber or the profit likely to be produced under
average circumstances by a larch wood in
England; and considering the great variety of
conditions of soil, situation, haulage, and market,
it is probable that statistics of the average
plantation would prove very little about any
particular plantation. The public journals fre-
quently publish accounts of profits made by
timber-planting, but these refer to successful
plantations and no mention is made of failures.
As a rough approximation to truth it may be
said that most larch plantations cease to grow
vigorously after about fifty-five years. Many
grow to seventy years, and some exceptionally
good trees in favourable situations are profitably
left to ninety or one hundred years, but fifty-
100 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
five to sixty-five is in most cases the age at
which a larch plantation should be felled.
It is impossible to attempt any average state-
ment of the value of thinnings. Generally it
is impossible to sell them except locally, and
local markets vary extremely. Also there is no
distinction between the later thinnings and a
partial clearance or the removal of the final
crop in instalments.
As a very general statement it may be said
that an average larch plantation should yield
during the last fifteen years of the rotation a
total crop per acre of about 1,600 cubic feet,
excluding all trees which measure less than
6 inches quarter-girth under bark.
Probably most planters would be satisfied if
they could be sure that at the end of the rota-
tion the receipts would show an annual profit
of 8s. per acre in addition to 3 per cent, com-
pound interest on the cost. Apart from any
local circumstances which may affect favourably
the sale of timber, it would be hazardous to
plant any land which could be let for more
than 5s. per acre annually, if the object of the
planting was merely the realisation of a profit.
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY
101
- ... W
CHAPTER VII
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY
FORESTRY is an art or a collection of rules of
applied sagacity. It is incorrect to say that
there is a science of forestry. We do not talk
of the science of making anything. Success
depends on close attention to the different cir-
cumstances of each woodland and the applica-
tion with intelligence of practical rules. Success
may in certain cases be obtained by blind un-
reasoning routine founded on certain traditionary
empirical maxims and on mechanical copying
of established processes, but under these cir-
cumstances success is always uncertain.
The object of this chapter is to show in what
way the practical rules of forestry are discovered,
and what they are. Forestry is an art which
does not admit of a high degree of accuracy,
for the conditions under which it exists are
ever varying and to a great extent beyond
control.
Forestry, like agriculture, is an artificial, not
103
104 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
a natural process; but if the forester does not
adapt his processes to the laws of nature ; if he
does not govern his conduct by the climate,
seasons, and nature of the soil; and if he does
not observe the limits within which the condi-
tions of vegetable life confine his operations, his
labour and expense will be in vain.
" There are three primary elements necessary
to the success of agricultural operations skilful
husbandry, a well-constituted soil, and a genial
climate. The first of these is now placed within
the reach of every intelligent man, and depends
on the application of his own skill and industry ;
the constitution of the soil is in general well
adapted by nature for the functions it has to
perform, and where it is defective its composition
may be corrected and its productive powers
increased ; but the elements which constitute
climate appear to be beyond man's control :
he is comparatively powerless to mitigate its
rigour or to add to its generous influence. It
is man's master, exacting submission; not his
servant, obeying his behests. Of what avail,
then, it may be asked, is the knowledge of such
a subject ? That we may bend to the power
we cannot control, and learn to adapt our culture
to the capabilities of the climate ; indeed,
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 105
climate is the ruling principle of agriculture,
the law which governs the productions of
different countries ; and he who yields the most
enlightened obedience obtains the largest re-
ward." Whitley, "On the Climate of the
British Islands in its Effect on Cultivation,"
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. xi.,
P . i. 1 :|p| ?M : . - < ->;
Some woods are successful, possibly in many
cases as the result of chance. An investigation
into the causes of success is the commencement
of a scientific art. The first step in this in-
vestigation is that all the facts relevant to the
subject are accurately observed, recorded, and
classified.
The observations which an individual can
make for himself are much fewer in number
than those which he can learn from others, but
they have the advantage that they are known
to him to be perfectly trustworthy. It is un-
likely that any responsible person will inaccu-
rately report a fact within his own observation ;
1 Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, by G. C.
Lewis, vol. ii., chap, xviii., p. 136. This chapter has a section
dealing with the following point, namely, the necessity of limita-
tions does not deprive a subject of a scientific character. In
chapter xix. there are sections on the different sorts of art and
the relation of art to science.
106 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
but if any of the facts are contrary to his own
theories he may, very possibly, omit to notice
them or pass over them very lightly, and thus
give an inaccurate account of the real reason
why the wood is successful. If a writer is re-
porting the success of a wood managed accord-
ing to a method which he approves, he will
almost certainly so represent the facts as to
suggest that the method and the success are
connected together as cause and effect. Further,
except subject to caution, not much benefit can
be derived from reading reports about foreign
woods unless they are situated in countries
whose conditions are fairly similar to those of
the United Kingdom. There is always the
possibility that the success of any woods in
foreign countries may be due to conditions
present in those countries and non-existent in
the United Kingdom.
The reflections the result of investigation
into the reasons of success are, when clearly
expressed, the practical rules of forestry. The
truth of these rules is the result of several
sciences, such as botany, chemistry, entomology,
and others.
It is no easy matter to say how far a practical
man should endeavour to acquire a knowledge
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 107
of those sciences which prove the truth of the
practical rules of the art of forestry.
Some writers claim that a forester ought to
make himself acquainted with those sciences
which establish the truth of the practical rules
of forestry. Unfortunately for this extension
of knowledge, the charge of English woods can
as a rule claim only a very limited portion of
a man's time, and in the more fortunate cases,
where forestry is a man's sole profession, he
can learn only very little of these sciences,
however great his leisure and ability may be.
Nothing can be gained by attempting to place
upon foresters such a burden of universal and
profound learning that the very enumeration of
its kinds is enough to frighten them. 1
Common sense must decide what can be
learnt. For example, a study of botany might
require more time than a practical forester
might be able to give, but a knowledge of the
common plants and flowers might be acquired
without much difficulty and usefully.
In almost all cases the practical rules are
successful, and it is not necessary to go behind
1 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses, No. VU, and J. S. Mill,
Logic, book vi., chap, xi., "Relation between rules of art and the
theorems of the corresponding science."
108 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
them and to consider why and under what
circumstances they are true. When their appli-
cation does not produce successful results the
practical forester should acknowledge the limita-
tions of practical rules, and call in the services
of the botanist or chemist or the expert of
whatever other science is concerned.
In recent years numerous books on forestry
have been published in England, and the subject
has received considerable attention in the press,
in the Journals of Societies, and in inquiries
made by Royal Commissions.
A great part of the instructions given by
recent writers to owners of English woods con-
sists in a strenuous recommendation to improve
their woods by the application of scientific
forestry. No definition of scientific forestry is
given, but this omission is of less importance
than might be expected, for an examination of
their works shows that these writers assume
that scientific forestry is for all practical pur-
poses the same thing as Continental forestry.
Their views about English woods are fairly
unanimous. They consider that they are, speak-
ing generally, in a very bad state, producing a
crop hardly equal to half of what it ought to
be. This condition they consider to be the
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 109
result of years of negligence, due partly to a
desire to use woods merely as game preserves
and partly to the natural stupidity of land-
owners. The practical remedy suggested is
adherence to great and universal truths about
forestry which are said to have been discovered
in Germany and to have been practised there
in the State forests for many years, and as a
means thereto the " appointment at Universities,
Academies, Institutes, and Forest Schools of
many professors of high scientific attainments
as teachers of the science of Forestry and the
Art of Sylviculture." x
There is no doubt that English forestry, like
everything else, is capable of improvement, and
that academies and professors may be very
useful. Still, it is possible to overestimate the
advantage of having numerous professors and
the inferiority of English compared with German
woods.
Speaking generally, the operations of forestry
such as planting, tending the young trees, and
thinning are well understood and properly carried
out in England. Mistakes have no doubt often
been made.
Over-thinning may have been the practice,
1 Studies in Forestry. Nisbet. Introduction.
110 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
but even in this matter there is much to be said
on both sides. No definite rule can be laid
down. English woods, as a rule, compare
favourably with German woods as regards the
amount of saleable timber ; that is to say, timber
which as a minimum squares 6 inches quarter-
girth under bark.
In the present day the tendency is to ascribe
an almost miraculous effect to science. In the
various works which have been written on
forestry from a scientific point of view little
regard has been paid to the difficulties or the
prejudices of English owners. It has been con-
sidered sufficient to ascribe any doubts about
the value of science to ignorance of what science
is and what it has done for forestry.
It is possible that the writers in favour of the
claims of science in forestry may have failed to
have in their own minds a clear definition of
science, and that they may have meant by
science merely a knowledge of the natural
sciences connected with forestry. The praise
of science may be the expression of the benefit
which the writers have themselves received in
the management of English woods, from a know-
ledge of the natural sciences. Where this is
not the case the advocacy of the claims of
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 111
forestry may probably be traced to the modern
excessive love of government administration.
The real, or supposed, necessity of a knowledge
of natural sciences is one of the most plausible
reasons for the demand that afforestation must
be entrusted to a government department whose
officials are to be specially trained in a govern-
ment college.
There can be no useful discussion about the
claims of science until there is an agreement
about the meaning of science. It ought to be
possible for a scientific man to impart his know-
ledge to the world without depreciation of the
labours of the practical man. There is no need
for any opposition. The best results will follow
when both work in collaboration and assist each
other. There is no ground for the supposition
that the scientific man should be the teacher
and the practical man the pupil.
Forestry is, unfortunately, the art for which
the natural sciences are perhaps least useful.
The reason is that scientific theories are apt to
become detached from reality unless they are
tested by frequent experiments, and the long
life of trees makes any conclusive experiment
very difficult.
Recently a collection of essays has been
112 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
published under the title, Science and the Nation, 1
with the object of making clear the position of
research as a factor in national prosperity. One
of the essays deals with forestry. The writer
admits by implication, that hitherto science
(whatever may be meant by this term) has done
nothing for forestry, but he is hopeful about the
benefits which the student in his laboratory may
in the future give to foresters. After a mention
of the appalling injuries done to German forests
by disease and destructive insects, he suggests
that science will be useful in finding means to
combat these pests; and further, that science
might provide useful knowledge about seeds
and the establishment of hybrids.
The writers who advocate science in forestry
are also optimistic about the advantages of State
afforestation and the profits to be derived from
planting. They have one common fault: they
urge, perhaps not unfairly, the facts which in
their opinion support their argument, but they
ignore or press very lightly the difficulties which
meet English owners, such as the heavy annual
expenses of rates and taxes, the burden of death
1 Science and the Nation, with an Introduction by the Right
Hon. Lord Moulton, edited by A. C. Seward, Master of Downing
College, Cambridge. At the University Press, 1917.
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 113
duties, and the competition of foreign timber,
self-sown, and also, as English owners maintain,
protected by preferential treatment on English
railroads. This one-sided way of stating their
case is one of the reasons why they have not
succeeded in converting the persons principally
interested, that is, the owners and agents of
English woods.
The reluctance to follow German methods is
not due to want of knowledge of those methods.
Members of the Royal Arboricultural Society
have visited Germany, and under the guidance
of German State foresters have inspected forests.
Most English people who possess or manage
woods have travelled on the Continent, and it
is not to be assumed that during their travels
they have kept their eyes absolutely closed.
It is at least a possible hypothesis that the
omission to follow Continental methods is the
result of a reasonable belief that they are unsuited
to English woodlands.
Some of the criticism directed against English
owners on the ground of their indifference to
science and reluctance to follow German methods,
may have arisen from political motives ; that is,
dislike of landowners as a class or an objection
to private ownership ; but a great part springs
8
114 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
simply from a desire to benefit timber growers
by inducing them to adopt methods which, so
the critics think, will make the woods more
remunerative. This is a reasonable object, for
hitherto the remuneration of timber-growing has
been very slight.
It is obvious that prior to the war there was
hardly any remuneration. During the war there
was a considerable rise in the prices of timber;
but even with this rise the profit does not exceed
4 per cent, on the cost of production. In the
opinion of some of those who are most experi-
enced in the sale of timber, the best possible
result that can be attained is the sale of a fifty-
year old wood at 100 per acre. Many woods
have been sold for more per acre ; but then, they
have been longer in growing, and the net
pecuniary result has been worse ; also, in every
large wood there may have been some acres
which were worth more than 100, but other
acres in the same wood were worth less.
Assuming that the sale of a fifty-year old
wood at 100 per acre is the high- water mark
of the possible profits from timber-growing, it
can easily be seen what is the difference between
the cost of production and the returns. The
annual value of land able to produce such a
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 115
crop would be at least 5s. per acre, and the cost
of planting 7 per acre. Five shillings per
annum for fifty years at 4| per cent, equals
44*6255, and 7 at compound interest at the
same rate equals 63*2282 ; adding these two
sums together the sum on the debit side will
be 107 against a credit of 100 by the sale of
timber. This way of stating the account assumes
that the receipts from thinnings balance the
expenditure on maintenance, rates, and taxes;
in fact, the thinnings from a wood that at fifty
years is sold for 100 per acre can have been
very few. An addition must be made to the
debit side equal to the excess of expenditure
on maintenance, rates, and taxes over the
receipts from thinnings. The exact figure of
this excess varies according to circumstances.
If this excess is equal to as little as 2s per acre
per annum the net return will be less than
4 per cent. 7 at 4 per cent, compound interest
in fifty years equals 49 ; 7s. per annum at
the same rate in fifty years equals 53, making
in all a debit of 102 against a credit of 100.
The most obvious fault in English forestry
is the absence of system. Felling and planting
take place at haphazard and not according to
a fixed plan. The absence of a system increases
116 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
the cost of management and prejudices English
forestry. Outsiders who notice the absence of
system and are ignorant of the difficulties of
English owners are apt to assume that this
want of system is due to negligence on the part
of English owners. The causes are, first, the
low prices of oak and coppice woods which have
now made their systematic development im-
possible ; and secondly, because, in fact, a
regular system is not so essential in England
as it is on the Continent.
English owners are not incapable of managing
their woods on a very accurate system. As
long as coppice woods were remunerative their
management was completely systematic. At the
present day the beech woods of Buckingham-
shire are worked on the selection system, with
skill, and produce good returns.
On the Continent the woods frequently are
not a part of an estate whose main income is
derived from the rents of farms, but are them-
selves the main estate. Their owner is anxious
to obtain an approximately equal annual income,
and in order to do so is obliged to fell annually,
to create young woods regularly to replace those
which are harvested, and also to make sure that
the fellings do not exceed the increment of the
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 117
woods. In this way systematic management is
compulsory for him. The English owner, whose
woods are of comparatively small extent is
under no necessity to have annual fellings. He
is content with intermittent returns, and cuts
his timber simply in accordance with its maturity
and the state of the market, and he sees no
necessity for systematic management. Further,
systematic management is very difficult under
the present circumstances of English woods.
In most English estates a large proportion of
the woodland consists of even- aged mature
or nearly mature oak, and at present prices
this class of timber has a very poor sale.
Felling these woods produces a very poor
return and destroys the beauty of the land-
scape. The result is that in many cases
nothing is done and the woods slowly decay.
The owner hopes that perhaps some day they
may be available as a reserve to meet death
duties or some other pressing financial necessity.
In spite of these difficulties there are some
considerations which suggest that an owner
would find it to his advantage to introduce
gradually a more systematic management by
reducing the area of mature timber, and then by
regulating both planting and future fellings so
118 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
that the woods on the property may in fairly
equal proportions be divided into young, middle-
aged, and mature.
Every one would admit that the management
of woodlands does not differ in essentials from
the management of farm lands. The aim of
both farmer and planter should be to preserve
the fertility of the soil and to obtain the highest
possible financial return by allowing none of the
land to remain idle. In both cases, so long as
the area remains unchanged, a fresh crop can
only be raised on land from which a previous
crop has been cleared. It follows that the most
useful tool in woods is the feller's axe, and it is
the necessary forerunner of the planter's spade.
If on an estate the feller's axe is not often heard
it may be assumed with great probability that
planting is being neglected. It is possible that
the axe is not used because the estate has been
previously cleared of all mature timber, or that
there are only young woods with no tree fit to
fell, but these are exceptional cases. In most
cases where felling is not done regularly, there
are some woods which are over-ripe and should
be, under proper management, felled and the
ground replanted.
Systematic forestry means that an owner
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 119
should neither cut hap-hazard nor should omit
to cut ripe timber merely because he is not in
immediate want of money. Also that he should
always replant his woods as the fellings clear
the ground.
For example, if there is a woodland area
consisting mainly of a wood of 100 acres of
oak about 150 years old in a district where
there is a good local sale for small quantities,
some proportion of the area should be cut
regularly, say two acres in every five years,
and the felling area increased whenever there
was a temporary rise in the price. The planting
should be done annually, or every third or fourth
year, and the intervals of time used in tending
the young trees and preparing transplants for
the next planting. Probably under such a plan
as this, about twenty acres would be cleared
and replanted in twenty years. The work would
proceed as a matter of routine, with a minimum
of cost and dislocation of labour on the rest of
the property. Probably in the second twenty
years it would be advisable to double the
rate of clearing, so that at the end of forty
years sixty acres would have been cleared,
and all, except the few acres recently cleared,
replanted.
120 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
The establishment of a nursery in or near
the proposed wood greatly diminishes the cost
of replanting. There is a gain in economy and
efficiency when felling, planting, cleaning, and
thinning are all done regularly and as matters
of routine and not as occasional efforts. The
greatest efficiency and economy result if an
approximately equal area is planted in every
year ; but it is rarely possible to maintain this
ideal for any lengthened period. Except on
estates of considerable size there cannot be
found in every year an area that requires plant-
ing. It is necessary to increase the size of the
area to be planted if the area felled has been
very large in proportion to the total woodland.
For example, if all the woodlands had been cut
during the war for pit-props and it has been
decided to replant with larch on a seventy-year
rotation, planting one-seventieth of the area in
each year would be a mistaken policy. The
economy and efficiency of continuous annual
planting would be more than balanced by the
loss of having the greater part of the land for
many years without any crop of trees except
such as might spring up under natural regenera-
tion. In such a case the area to be annually
planted might be advantageously fixed at a
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 121
large figure, such as one-tenth, one-fifteenth, or
one-twentieth of the whole area.
Fellings are of necessity generally intermittent.
The age of the trees and the state of the markets
sometimes make sales of timber impossible. Or
there may not be always a sufficient quantity
of mature timber to make a sale sufficiently
large to attract timber merchants. Still, it is
generally possible to arrange for the gradual
removal of mature timber and the subsequent
replanting of the cleared ground.
There is no necessity for a rigid rule; woods
grow at different rates ; and if the date of felling
is fixed by a rigid rule timber would sometimes
be cut before it was ripe and at other times
left standing after it had reached maturity.
Whatever plan is first adopted can always be
altered, either to meet variations in the market-
price of timber or to carry out improvements
suggested by experience. The important thing
is to have a plan, and not to cut and plant
casually. In the absence of a plan there is a
possibility that the woods will be cut severely
when the owner is short of money, and where
this is not the case the maturity of the older
woods is overlooked and they are retained long
after they have ceased to grow. In either case
122 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
replanting is made more difficult and expensive
than if it were done regularly. When woods
are worked according to a plan, all the trees
will be removed in course of time, and yet the
woods will remain like a fleet which constantly
remains at sea, though the ships go in regular
order to port to refit.
The accounts of the woodland area are on
many estates kept with extreme care. The
general expenses and receipts are analysed and
separately allocated to the different woods.
This elaboration of the accounts involves an
expense which seems to be out of proportion
to any benefit gained. If the object of the
accounts is to show the history of a wood from
start to finish they must be kept with meticulous
care. Even a single rail that has been cut down
to mend a fence must be entered under the
head of thinnings, and if it is not measured, at
least its size should be indicated. In the case of
owners who use accounts in order to know the
financial position of their property this extreme
carefulness would be mere pedantry.
In the accounts it is useful to have a separate
subdivision showing the final result of the woods
for the separate years. Perhaps in one year
there has been a heavy felling and a large excess
SYSTEMATIC FORESTRY 123
of receipts over expenses, and then for many
years nothing has been received and expenses
annually incurred. By placing on the same
page the results of different years the owner
can see at once the net result of the inter-
mittent gains and losses.
A book should be kept showing the stock of
timber in each wood or subdivision of a wood.
The stock-taking need not be expensive. Woods
under twenty-five years are sufficiently entered
as good, fair, or bad, and an estimate given of
the blank spaces. The cubic contents of the
older woods can be estimated, and the method
of estimation stated, as, for example, so many
trees per acre and so many cubic feet per average
tree. The entries progressively grow more accu-
rate, both by comparison with actual measure-
ments when trees are felled and by greater
experience in forming estimates.
A book of this description, annually made up,
shows the rate of increase of timber in each
wood. It shows which woods are thriving and
which are making slow progress. It also gives
the owner knowledge of the changes in the
aggreggate of timber in his woods.
One result of close attention to the growth
of the timber in woods will be the disappearance
124 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
of trees of the largest size. Woods will be cut
down on the first favourable opportunity, after
it is obvious that the value of the annual incre-
ment is considerably less than the interest which
the selling price would produce if invested.
The amount of wood annually added by growth
to a tree continuously diminishes after a certain
period in the life of the tree, and is very slight
for many years before it ceases. The greatest
possible size can be attained only if the life of
the tree lasts as long as there is the power of
making even the smallest additional growth.
The systematic forester has other objects
than the production of the picturesque and
grand. In the natural woodland there is much
unoccupied ground, glades, thickets of under-
wood, many coarse ill-formed trees, and a few
trees of exceptional size. When systematic
forestry takes charge of the woodland these
elements of the picturesque and grand disappear,
except where a few escape as the result of accident
and neglect. Well-formed trees are themselves
so beautiful that they give a beauty to the most
uninteresting scenery, but plantations are dull and
heavy, except as seen from a distance in spring
and autumn, when the varying tints enable the eye
to dwell on separate parts of the whole mass.
AFFORESTATION
125
CHAPTER VIII
AFFORESTATION
THE afforestation of large areas by the State
is ardently advocated as one of the most hopeful
methods of reconstruction after the war. It is
urged that a considerable amount of timber
might, under State management, be grown on
waste lands now occupied by a few sheep or
by grouse or deer. Further, it is hoped that
the afforestation of these waste lands would,
in conjunction with a system of small holdings,
establish in exceptionally healthy surroundings
a population who would work in winter in the
woods and in summer on their own holdings.
Very different opinions have been expressed
about the total area of waste lands suitable for
planting, 1 and the possibility of creating thriving
plantations at an altitude above the 1,000-foot
1 The Coast Erosion Commission estimated the total area of
afforestable land for the United Kingdom at 9,000,000 acres.
The Commission of the Forestry Sub-Committee, 1918, estimates
the total area of afforestable land in the United Kingdom at
between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 acres.
127
128 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
contour line. Two opposite views about the
financial result of this proposed State afforesta-
tion are put forward. The one which is gener-
ally presented by writers in newspapers, is that
these plantations will bring a good interest on
the expenditure. Apparently this opinion is
founded on a belief that the State forests in
Germany and France are financially successful.
This belief will not stand close investigation.
The conservation of the natural forests in Ger-
many and France may have been advantageous
to those countries, but such advantages are no
proof of financial success. Even if the State
forests on the Continent were financially success-
ful, their example would be relevant in an
inquiry into the probable financial result of
planting in the United Kingdom, only if it were
shown that the new woods planted on the Con-
tinent during the last century were now producing
a fair rental for the soil and a fair interest on
the capital expended.
The other view is that the State ought not to
strive after financial success in the management
of State forests.
Professor Schwappach, in a paper read before
the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, said
that whether the afforestation of waste lands
AFFORESTATION 129
in Scotland will be financially successful or not
will to some extent depend upon whether the
question is regarded from the national point of
view or from the standpoint of the owner of
the woodlands for the time being. His opinion
was that the State ought to be content with a
profit much smaller than would be sufficient for
a private owner.
In 1899 the Oberlandformeister, or director
of the Prussian forest department, used the
following language in laying down the principles
upon which the Government manages its forests :
" The Prussian State forest administration
does not accede to the principles of a continuous
highest soil rent based upon compound interest
calculations, but believes, in contradistinction
to private forest management, that it cannot
avoid the obligation in the management of the
State forests of keeping in view the welfare of
the whole community of citizens, and therein
taking into consideration the need for continued
supply of wood and other forest products as
well as the other objects to which in so many
other directions the forest is subservient. The
administration does not consider itself entitled
to pursue a one-sided financial policy, least of
all to submit the Government forests to a pure
9
130 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
money-making management strictly based on
capital and interest calculations, but considers
it its duty to so manage the forests as a patri-
mony belonging to the whole nation that the
present generation may be benefited by the
highest possible usufruct in satisfying its wants
and deriving the protection which the forest ren-
ders, and to future generations may be secured
at least as large usufruct of the same kind."
It is a fair argument, that the absence of a
financial profit in a State undertaking cannot
be accepted as a conclusive proof of failure,
for there may be indirect benefits of great value
which cannot be expressed in figures. A battle-
ship may be sold for one-tenth of the original
cost, but there is no loss of nine-tenths. That
sum is not a loss, but the cost of the advantages
which the State derived from the possession of
the battle-ship. Money spent on woods which
fail to grow is a loss, but the cost of diminishing
the national dependence on foreigners for timber
and of establishing a healthy population on
lands now waste is not fairly called a loss.
Still, it is obvious that before commencing a
large system of State afforestation a prudent
statesman would wish to have an approximate
estimate of the cost per acre.
AFFORESTATION 131
In each year of the rotation that is, from the
year in which the first area was planted to the
year in which it was felled a certain additional
area would be planted, and the capital expen-
diture of the State for the purchase and the
planting of land would continuously increase.
When the first planted area was cleared the
capital expenditure would cease and a perpetual
income would be received. It would be the
sale money of the area cleared in each year,
less the cost of replanting the area cleared in
the previous year.
In the present absence of all details about
the length of the rotation, the cost of the land,
and of maintenance, any estimate of the capital
expenditure can be only a rough approximation.
Yet it is possible to give some figures which are
beyond doubt.
The capital expenditure per acre on the forest
at the time when it becomes self-supporting
cannot be less than 30.
In a letter to The Spectator, published in
January 1914, the Duke of Northumberland
pointed out that, assuming the land to be worth
annually Is. per acre before it was planted and
the cost of planting 3 per acre, the following
would be the result : namely, Is. per annum
132 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
invested at 2j per cent, amounts at the end of
eighty years to 12 8s. 4<d. 9 and a capital sum
of 3 invested at 2| per cent, for the same period
amounts to 21 125. 7d. These two sums added
together give a total sum of 34 Os. lid.
These values for the purchase of the land
and the cost of planting are very moderate.
There is no expenditure charged for maintenance
or for rates and taxes. A consideration of them
is sufficient to prove that, even assuming a great
reduction in the length of the rotation and that
the thinnings pay for the maintenance, rates,
and taxes, it would not be possible to estimate
that the forests could be established at a less
cost than 30 per acre.
All predictions about the financial results of
afforestation are only conjectural. It is im-
possible to know with any form of accuracy
the prices of labour and timber after the war.
Probably all prices will rise. There is no present
reason to think that the rise on the debit and
credit side of a forest account will be unequal
in amount, though the possibility cannot be
entirely excluded that timber might rise in price
only slightly and the expenses increase greatly.
Another conjectural view of the result of
afforestation may be presented as follows. Omit
AFFORESTATION 133
all mention of interest, assume that the cost of
the land and of the planting equals 10, that
the rotation is eighty years and that the annual
returns after eighty years are l 10s., then the
final result is that 10 will at the end of eighty
years produce an income of l 10s. per annum.
This conjecture assumes that Scotch fir is
planted on very poor land. State afforestation
in the United Kingdom on a large scale means,
in fact, afforestation in Scotland and the planting
mainly of Scotch fir, for the following reasons,
viz. the land selected as the site of State afforesta-
tion must be suitable for the growth of trees,
free from commoners' rights of grazing, not more
than, as a maximum, 1,500 feet above sea-level,
and must be near water-carriage for the timber
and also near land suitable for small holdings.
The land to be planted must be in a large block
and not capable of being used for profitable com-
mercial or agricultural purposes. The effect of
all these requirements is that State afforestation
must be mainly confined to Scotland, for no-
where else can these requirements be satisfied.
Also the forest will be mainly a Scotch fir forest,
though it may include Douglas fir, spruce, and
hardwoods.
Scotch fir woods, if well managed, may be
134 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
profitable, but they are exposed to great dangers.
They are liable to damage from snow and
disease, and while young are very inflammable.
Their timber is sold in competition with foreign
timber that has been self-sown and carried by
water to English and Scotch docks.
The combination of small holdings and govern-
ment employment in connection with State
afforestation will increase the cost of the woods.
There are several firms of good reputation who
make it their business to undertake to plant
by contract woods, and to replace during an
agreed number of years all dead trees. The
planting of the woods could be entrusted to
these firms, if the only object of State afforesta-
tion was the supply of timber. Their em-
ployment would save the cost of a numerous
administration and would postpone the cost of
the creation of small holdings for many years,
so that if it was ultimately found necessary, as
the trees reached maturity, to have a resident
population to work in the woods, there would
be only a moderate interval of time between
the expenditure on the small holdings and the
receipt of money from the sale of trees.
The sums which would have been received
for income tax and death duties if the land
AFFORESTATION 135
had remained in private hands will be lost.
Also in a country where every public servant
has a vote, there is an inevitable tendency to
considerable increases in salaries, wages, office
expenses, and pensions.
One objection to State afforestation some-
times urged, is that it must be bad and expen-
sive. This objection is based on the very un-
satisfactory condition of the English Crown
lands. The Recent Forestry Sub-Committee of
the Reconstruction Committee take confidently
a different view. They say (p. 40), " We do
not believe that State afforestation means ex-
pensive and inefficient action. On the contrary,
we have the long experience of all the countries
in which forestry has reached a high pitch of
development and the promising methods of
management in certain of the Crown woods of
recent years to prove the contrary."
The only countries in which forestry has had
a long experience and reached a high pitch of
development are France and the states of the
German Empire. All the countries to which
the Sub-Committee refer are only two in number.
Efficient is not a precise teim, and opinions
differ about the efficiency of the French and
German Forest Administrations. Expensive is
136 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
more precise, and there should be no difficulty
in proving that the French and German Forest
Administrations are not expensive, if such is
the case. This proof has not yet been given.
There is no book published in the English
language containing accounts from which it is
possible to ascertain the expenses of the French
and German Forest Administrations. The
Forestry Sub -Committee give no reference to
any published accounts.
The fact that returns from forestry are long
deferred may be a reason for thinking that
private enterprise would be unwilling to carry
out afforestation on a large scale, from which,
if it is assumed that afforestation on a large
scale is necessary, it follows that the work must
be done by the State. Some people go much
farther, and urge that, even if private enter-
prise is willing to carry out afforestation, State
afforestation should be started, because in their
opinion the State can do the work better than
individuals. Their argument is that continuity
of administration is essential in forestry, and
that a State department gives continuity of
administration with more certainty than can be
expected from a succession of individuals. No
historical facts are ever given in proof of the
AFFORESTATION 137
continuity of State administration. Although
the states of England, France, and Germany
have owned forests during several generations,
no one attempts to show that these states have
observed continuity of administration. It is
beyond question, that it would be impossible
to state any form of administration which has
been continuously adopted by the states of
England, France, and Germany.
These advocates of State afforestation imply
that the continuity of State administration is a
truism, which only requires to be stated to
commend itself to every person of common
sense, and that historical proofs are unnecessary.
Even if this very strong assumption is granted
for the sake of argument, it cannot be admitted
that continuity of administration is desirable in
all cases. Alterations in administration are
occasionally adopted in all businesses, and are
inevitable. The policy about the extension or
diminution of the forest area has varied in the
past and will vary as long as market conditions
and opinions on economic questions are liable
to change.
The zeal shown in pressing for State afforesta-
tion is not derived entirely from a consideration
of the conditions peculiar to forestry, but is,
138 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
to a large extent, the result of a belief that
State control and management are advantageous
in all branches of industry. It is said that
forestry is essentially work for the State, because
the returns are long deferred ; and with equal
zeal it is said that the management of railways
is essentially work for the State, although the
returns from railways are quickly realised.
As an alternative to the plan of establishing
a forest by regularly planting in each year an
approximately equal area, very large areas may
be planted in periods of unemployment and
after heavy fellings. According to this plan,
in normal years forest operations would
be restricted to planting small areas and the
maintenance of the previously planted areas.
Arrangements for intermittent work are more
difficult to make than those for regular work,
but with care they should not be more expensive.
A suggestion has been made that areas of
about 500 acres each should be planted in
different parts of England by the officials of
the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, as
patterns to English owners and land agents
and ideals of forest management.
The advantages of this scheme are not easily
seen. It could not materially relieve the depen-
AFFORESTATION 139
dency on foreign supplies of timber, reduce
unemployment, or establish a rural population ;
and seems to be based upon the assumption
that the officials of the Board of Agriculture and
Fisheries are better qualified than English owners
and land agents to plant and manage woods.
Some recent attempts to form plantations on
Crown land are sufficient proofs that it is not
under all circumstances an easy thing to make
woods grow, and even if under this scheme
very fine woods were produced, they could give
no useful lesson. It is one thing to manage
woods so as to produce fine timber and quite
a different thing to combine with fine timber
a fair return on the expenditure.
An official who can rely on the unlimited
resources of the State, and whose salary is inde-
pendent of markets or seasons, must have a
very sympathetic mind if he can really under-
stand and relieve the difficulties of those who
manage their own woodlands in face of in-
creasing taxation and a precarious bank balance.
It is possible to produce fine woods by a
management which is regardless of cost, so that
the woods would be perfect models of the way
in which English woods should not be managed
if the realisation of a profit is essential.
MEASUREMENT
141
CHAPTER IX
MEASUREMENT
IN England trees are measured by the quarter-
girth. At a point midway between the top and
bottom of the tree or portion of the tree to be
measured, the circumference, excluding bark, is
measured in inches and divided by four ; the
result is the quarter -girth. It is the side of a
square inscribed within a circle whose circum-
ference is equal to the circumference of the tree.
The quarter-girth when squared, divided by
144 and multiplied by the length of the tree
in feet, gives the cubic contents in feet. A tree
whose length is 40 feet, and whose circumference
at 20 feet from the ground is 24 inches, has a
quarter-girth of 24 -f- 4 = 6. The contents are
6 x 6 x 40 , . f
= 10 cubic feet.
144
This measurement gives something like 22 per
cent, less than the real contents of the tree.
Four portions of the area of a circle are outside
a square inscribed within the circle. These
us
144 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
amount to about 22 per cent, of the area of
the circle. They are omitted by the quarter-
girth measurement on the ground that the out-
side portions of a tree are of little or no value
to a timber merchant. On the continent of
Europe both the valuable and the valueless
portions of a tree are equally included in the
measurement. Also railway companies in Eng-
land measure the whole contents of a tree if
sent in the round ; they use as a divisor 113
instead of 144. The measurement is taken by
string under bark (or by string over bark with
a reasonable allowance for the bark) except
when such timber is consigned at tape over
bark rates, or it is agreed that tape over bark
rates shall apply.
The measurement of the quarter-girth is made
either by stretching a piece of whipcord round
the tree and then folding it four times and
taking the result with a foot-rule, or a quartering
tape measure is used.
The cubic contents are found by using a
timber ready-reckoner, such as Hoppus, whereby
the cubic contents of any piece of timber may
be found at sight from 2 to 54 inches the side
of the square (or one fourth of the girth), and
from one quarter of a foot to 45 feet the length.
MEASUREMENT 145
In measuring standing timber, the height,
girth, and the allowance for bark and taper can
only be estimated, and are therefore liable to dis-
pute ; but it is possible to fix the number of the
trees with certainty. Counting them separately
is the only method of accurately ascertaining the
number of trees in a wood. Each tree should
be marked by a scribe, paint, chalk, or a piece
of paper. The counting should not be allowed
to go to high figures ; as soon as ten or twenty is
reached a line should be made in a notebook
and counting should commence again from one.
In order to avoid the loss of time which is
necessary for counting the trees in large fir
plantations the number is sometimes fixed by
an estimate either derived from the valuer's
experience or founded on measurements of the
distance apart of the trees, 1 or the number of
trees counted in small plots. The trees in a
square of 7 yards, if multiplied by 100, are
approximately equal to the number of trees in
an acre. If the valuer measures by his own
paces or otherwise several squares of 7 yards
and counts the trees, the average result, multi-
plied by 100 and then by the number of acres
in the wood, should theoretically give the number
1 See table, p. 153.
10
146 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
of trees in the wood. This method of estimating
the number of trees is founded on the fact that
there are 4,840 yards in an acre, which is taken
to be equal for practical purposes to 4,900,
i.e. 7 x 7 x 100. Also one or more fairly large
sample plots, of which the size is accurately
known, may be selected and the trees in them
counted and the result multiplied by the fraction
which the selected portion bears to the area of
the whole wood as shown by the ordnance map.
One source of error in an estimate is that a
wood is usually not uniform in growth. A
small difference in the distance at which the
trees stand apart means a great difference in
their number ; the portions selected may not
be really representative. Another source of
error is that it not easy to know what deduc-
tions for blanks should be made from the acreage
within the wood fences. Roads, paths, and
bare spots when added together may be an
appreciable portion of the whole area.
An error in an estimate is easily made, and
disputes are very probable unless the trees are
counted or great care is taken in forming an
estimate. It is possible that a landowner may
advertise a wood as containing about 20,000
trees, and a timber merchant, after buying it
MEASUREMENT 147
for a lump sum and felling it, may find the
number to be seriously less than 20,000. Then
the seller urges that the indefinite word " about "
showed that the number given was only an
estimate, and the buyer contends- that the word
covers only small differences. If the wood
really contained a larger number of trees, the
owner has in fact, by his erroneous estimate,
made the timber merchant a present of the
trees in excess of the estimate.
After the number of trees in a fir plantation
has been fixed by a count or by an estimate,
the cubic contents can be ascertained. The
simplest method, if measuring has been omitted
as too tedious, is to treat separately the trees
of exceptional size and the trees which are
obviously below the average size. The first
class should be counted and measured. The
number and cubic contents of the second class
can be estimated. When these two classes have
been eliminated, it should be comparatively
easy to estimate the cubic contents of the average
tree in the intermediate class.
The height of a tree, for the purpose of
measurement, is the distance from the ground
to the top of the measurable timber. In trees
grown clean in woods it is the place where the
148 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
crown commences. It can be guessed with fair
accuracy by placing a measured rod against
the lower part of the bole. After this has been
done with care in a certain number of trees
the eye becomes accustomed to the average
height of the trees in the wood.
The girth of a tree can be found by girthing
it at 5 feet from the ground and forming an
estimate of the allowance to be made for bark
and for the taper of the tree from 5 feet above
the ground to the spot that is half of the height.
In a larch wood where the trees are of less than
fifty years' growth one inch off the quarter-
girth at 5 feet is generally sufficient, that is,
\ inch for bark and \ inch for taper. Also a
fairly accurate estimate of the taper can be
made if the tape has a hook at one end and
with the help of a long stick is swung round
the tree 10 or 12 feet above the ground. The
rate of diminution of circumference from the
ground to 10 or 12 feet of height is a fair guide
to the diminution from the ground to a point
half way up the tree.
All estimations of height and quarter-girth of
standing timber should, if possible, be checked
by careful measurements of sample trees after
they have been felled.
MEASUREMENT 149
The quarter-girth over bark of felled timber can
be accurately measured. If the timber has been
sold at so much a foot felled, it is a useful plan for
both parties to agree to measure over bark and to
find the volume under bark by a fixed deduction
from the total of the measurements over bark.
In a normal larch wood, where there are no
old trees, a reduction of 12| per cent, from the
total of the cubic feet over bark will represent
the amount of cubic feet under bark. Should
either party doubt the fairness of a reduction
of 12 J per cent, a certain number of average
stems can be measured over bark and then again
after a ring of bark has been removed, and the
difference between the cubic contents of the two
measurements taken as the allowance to be made.
In normal oak trees grown in a wood an
allowance for bark of 1 inch, or in some cases
Ij inches, in every 12 inches of quarter-girth
is sufficient. The taper of oak trees can only be
estimated after inspection of the tree, for individual
differences of oak trees are much greater than in
the case of larch grown closely in a wood.
Some measurers make an allowance, in stand-
ing oak timber, for bark and taper combined
of 2\ inches in every 12 inches of quarter-girth.
If the tree is again measured after it has been
150 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
felled and barked, it will frequently be found
that this allowance is somewhat in excess of an
accurate measurement.
The height of a tree which it is desired to
know with greater accuracy than is possible
by estimation can be measured, if the tree is
in such a position that an observer can stand
level with it and measure the ground between
himself and the foot of the tree. (1) With a
pocket clinometer an observer can find the place
where the top of the tree makes an angle of
45 degrees with his eye, then the distance from
himself to the foot of the tree, plus the distance of
his eye from the ground, equals the height of the
tree 1 ; or (2) by the relation of similar triangles.
Take two poles of different lengths, push the
smaller one into the ground until the top is
at a convenient height for the eye, say 5 feet,
B
1 In the triangle A
C A
If the angle at C = 26 34 then A B = $ C A nearly
= 35 A B = A- C A
= 38 40 A B = $ C A
=45 A B = C A exactly.
and put the longer pole 3 feet in front of it
and between it and the tree. Take two imagin-
ary lines from the top of the smaller pole, one
to the top of the tree and one to the point on
a level
MEASUREMENT
with the top of the
151
pole. Note
-v
the height of die tire, D the top of
pole 5 feet from the ground, b the
B
3 feet in front at D,
DC-.Dc. Assnme that DC the distance of the
eye from the tree, if 30 feet and be
= 8x ** = 30. and CA is
equal to the height at D: therefore BA =
90 + 5 = 35; or fi^ may be found by taking an
152 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
BA:DC::ba:Dc; assume that ba=--3% feet,
f>(\ y. ql_
then B A - ^ = 35 feet.
The following table of quarter-girths and
lengths facilitates the calculation of contents.
6 inches quarter-girth is J of length
' 99 99 99 "3 99
*tJ 99 99 99 2" 99
10 2
XV/ 99 99 99 3 99
^ 99 99 99 1 99
1*5 99 99 99 lj 99
l^J 99 99 99 1"2" 99
16 If
T7 9
1 99 99 99 ^ 99
99 99 99 2J j,
21
99 99 *^ 99
For example, if a tree has a length of 40 feet
and a quarter-girth of 6 inches, the cubic con-
tents are of 40 = 10 cubic feet. If the quarter-
girth is 8| inches, the cubic contents are 20 cubic
feet, and with a quarter-girth of 17 inches the
cubic contents are 80 feet double the length.
Measurement of the cubic contents of the
first 12 feet from the ground is a great assistance
in ascertaining the cubic contents of a large
tree. Mark with a piece of paper or something
prominent the top of the first 12 feet and estimate
MEASUREMENT
153
with the eye what proportion this part bears to
the whole tree.
The contents of the first 12 feet are found
by squaring the quarter-girth and dividing the
result by 12, e.g. at 6 feet from the ground the
circumference under bark is 36 inches, then
the quarter-girth is 9 inches, and 9 squared and
divided by 12 = 6*9, the cubic contents in feet
of the first 12 feet of the tree, for the cubic con-
tents equal the quarter-girth squared divided
by 144 and multiplied by the length in feet, i.e.
9 x 9 x 12
12 x 12
= 6-9.
PLANTING TABLE
Number of trees in an acre, defined by the Weights and
Measures Act, 1878, as containing 4,840 square yards.
Distance apart
in feet,
Number of Trees.
Distance apart
in feet.
Number of Trees.
1
43,560
*
482
2
10,890
10
435
3
4,840
10|
395
31
3,546
11
360
4
2,722
111
339
H
2,151
12
302
5
1,742
13
259
5*
1,440
14
222
6
1,210
15
193
*|
1,031
16
170
889
17
150
7|
774
18
134
8
680
19
120
8*
603
20
109
9
537
22
90
The formula is
43,560
distance apart x distance apart
= number of trees.
PUBLIC BURDENS
155
CHAPTER X
PUBLIC BURDENS
THE rating of woodlands, not subject to any
right of common, is regulated by the Rating
Act of 1874. Prior to 1874 land used merely
as woodland was not rateable. The earlier
rating statute of Elizabeth expressly mentioned
saleable underwoods ; it was therefore con-
sidered that growing timber was excluded ;
Secondly, independently of the statute, there
was a difficulty in the nature of things in rating
growing timber, because the rate is made for
short periods, and to rate a man in respect
of timber which might not be fit to cut until
his grandson's time, might fairly be thought
inequitable. Saleable underwoods were in a
different position, because they were cut from
time to time and produced a profit at short
intervals.
Such being the law, the legislature came to
the conclusion that land used for growing timber
ought not to be entirely exempt.
157
158 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
The Rating Act 1874 (37 & 38 Vic. c. 54),
provides, 4 : The gross and rateable value
of any land used for a plantation or a wood
or for the growth of saleable underwood shall
be estimated as follows :
(a) If the land is used only for a plantation
or wood, the value shall be estimated
as if the land, instead of being a planta-
tion or wood, were let and occupied in
its natural and unimproved state.
(b) If the land is used for the growth of
saleable underwood, the value shall be
estimated as if the land were let for
that purpose.
(c) If the land is used both for a plantation
or a wood and for the growth of sale-
able underwood, the value shall be
estimated either as if the land were
used only for a plantation or wood, or
as if the land were used only for the
growth of saleable underwood growing
thereon, as the Assessment Committee
may determine.
There appears to be no definition of " unim-
proved state." Probably it means without the
PUBLIC BURDENS 159
addition of any value which the trees and the
planting may have given it, and the whole
expression, " natural and unimproved," is an
attempt to define what is popularly called
" prairie value." No increase above the prairie
value can be made in the assessment in respect
of any benefit which user for agricultural pur-
poses might give (Corp. of Liverpool v. Chorley
Union, 36 L.T. 108 ; 41 J.P. 231), nor, when
farm land is planted, because the prairie value
is less than the value which it had when used
for agricultural purposes.
It is very difficult to give a cash value to the
annual rental of land assumed to be in a natural
and unimproved state. The main ingredient of
value in most land is its capacity to produce
valuable returns as the result of the expenditure
of money and labour on it. Some lands have
been under wood from time immemorial, and
therefore their natural state may be considered
as woodland, and until they are improved by
the removal of the roots their annual value is
nil for any other purpose than growing timber.
Agricultural land that has been planted would,
in very few cases, have had any value for agri-
culture if the farmer had been compelled to use
it in a natural and unimproved state.
160 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
If the land in its natural and unimproved
state would have an enhanced value from the
presence of game, such enhanced value may be
taken into account in the assessment of it
(Eyton v. Overseers of Mold, 1880, 6 Q.B.D. 13).
Five shillings in the is a very usual figure
at which Assessment Committees assess the
rateable value of woodlands including the sport-
ing rights. Five shillings is almost always in
excess of the annual value of the land in its
natural and unimproved state. In very many
cases it is in excess of the annual rental that
can be obtained for the land and the trees on it.
Land used for a plantation or a wood or
for the growth of saleable underwood, and not
subject to any right of common, is entitled to
the three-fourths exemptions conferred on wood-
lands for the general district rate made by an
urban district council and the rate for special
purposes made by a rural district council, under
211 and 212 of the Public Health Act, 1895.
Woodlands derive no benefit from the Agri-
cultural Act, 1896, 59 & 60 Vic. c. 16, and
are not entitled to the one-half exemption
given to " agricultural land."
PUBLIC BURDENS 161
INCOME TAX
The owner of woodlands is assessed for the
purpose of Income Tax under Schedule A in
respect of the annual value ; that is, the imaginary
rent which could be obtained for it. The
amount is fixed by Commissioners acting under
the Income Tax Acts. Apart from exceptional
cases this amount is in practice the same as the
assessment under the Poor Law Rating. The
Commissioners adopt the Poor Law figure, unless
there is reason to the contrary.
The owner of woodlands is liable to payment
of Income Tax under Schedule B in respect of
the profits arising from the occupation of the
land. The assessment for Schedule B is an
amount equal to the rent or full annual value.
Thus the assessment under Schedule B, like the
assessment under Schedule A, in practice is the
same figure as the assessment of the prairie
value fixed under the Poor Law. It is apparent
that during the growth of the trees the annual
value derived from the land is either nil or a
nominal figure. The assessment under Schedule
B is a hypothetical value, which is either non-
existent or greatly in excess of the income
which the owner receives.
11
162 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
Two recent statutes give an occupier of wood-
lands an option to be charged to Income Tax
under Schedule D (which deals with the profits
arising from trades and professions) instead
of under Schedule B. The assessment under
Schedule D is the average profit of the three
years preceding the year of assessment.
The Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, 22, sub-sec.
4, provides as follows :
(4) Any person occupying woodlands, who
proves to the satisfaction of the General Com-
missioners that those woodlands are managed
by him on a commercial basis and with a view
to the realisation of profits, may elect to be
charged to Income Tax in respect of those
woodlands under Schedule D instead of under
Schedule B, in the same manner as a person
occupying lands for the purpose of husbandry
only, and 18 of the Customs and Inland
Revenue Act, 1887, shall apply accordingly,
subject as follows :
(a) Any such election shall extend to all
woodlands so managed on the same
estate ; and
(b) The election shall have effect, not only as
respects the year of assessment men-
PUBLIC BURDENS 163
tioned in that section (A.D. 1915), but
also as respects all future years of assess-
ment so long as the woodlands are
occupied by the person making the
election.
The last Act (6 & 7 Geo. V. c. 24), 38, provides :
(1) Any person occupying woodlands who
proves to the satisfaction of the Special Com-
missioners that those woodlands are managed by
him on a commercial basis, and with a view
to the realisation of profits, shall have the same
right under sub-section (4) of 22 of the Finance
(No. 2) Act, 1915, to elect to be charged under
Schedule D as a person who proves those
facts to the satisfaction of the General Com-
missioners, but an application to prove those
facts in any year in respect of the same wood-
lands must be made either to the General or
Special Commissioners, and not to both.
(2) Paragraph (a) of sub-section (4) of 22
of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915 (which
provides that the election shall extend to all
woodlands managed on the same estate), shall
not apply to woodlands which are planted
or replanted after the passing of this Act, if
the person occupying those woodlands gives
164 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
notice to the General or Special Commissioners
within a year after the time when they are so
planted or replanted that they are to be treated
for the purpose of that paragraph as being
woodlands on a separate estate.
(3) Section twenty-three of the Customs and
Inland Revenue Act, 1890, 53 & 54 Vic. c. 8
(which gives relief to trading persons in case of
loss), shall, where a person occupying woodlands
has elected to be charged to Income Tax in
respect of those woodlands under Schedule D,
apply, to losses on those woodlands as it applies
to losses in any trade.
Under both the Acts of 1915 and 1916 the
right to claim assessment under Schedule D is
limited to the case of woods managed on a
commercial basis, and the election is irrevocable
so long as the woodlands are occupied by the
person making the election. Under the earlier
Act the election extends to all the woodlands
on the same estate. Under the later Act an
owner can claim to have the woods planted or
replanted since July 19th, 1916, treated for the
purpose of Income Tax as being woodlands on
a separate estate.
A doubt was expressed by some owners, lest
by electing to be assessed under Schedule D
PUBLIC BURDENS 165
they might have to bring into account the
receipts from the sale of timber during the two
years immediately preceding the year when
replanting was begun and in which they first
came under Schedule D.
A correspondence between the Central Land
Association and the Inland Revenue on this
point has been published in the Journal of
Forestry, April 1917, Vol. xi., No. 2, at p. 135.
It appears that in the opinion of the Board of
Inland Revenue, when an occupier of woodlands
elects for assessment to Income Tax Schedule D
as for a separate estate under the provisions
of 38 (2) of the Finance Act, 1916, the
computation of the profit or loss falls to be
made as in the case of a business newly set up,
no regard being had to the profits or losses
arising from the land in question prior to the
date of the replanting. It is difficult, if not
impossible, to assess fairly for the purposes of
annual taxation property which has no annual
income, but produces a fund composed partly
of income and partly of capital at widely
separated periods, and when in the interval be-
tween these periods there are annual outgoings.
The Finance Act, 1916, recognises the fact
that timber-growing necessarily involves no
166 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
returns and constant losses for many years, and
extends to losses on woodlands the relief given
by 23 of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act,
1890, 53 & 54 Vic. c. 8, in the case of loss in
business.
In the House of Commons a request was
made for an explanation of this clause. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would
illustrate the effect of the clause by a concrete
example. " A man whom he would call ' X '
had lands which he proposed to plant or replant
with timber. Within a year of the planting
' X ' satisfied either the General Commissioners
or the Special Commissioners that he was
managing a newly planted woodland on a com-
mercial basis. He elected for Schedule D assess-
ment, and intimated that these woodlands were
to be treated as a separate area, a distinct unit,
for Income Tax purposes. That was to say,
that these woods, managed on a commercial
basis, were to be cut out for Income Tax purposes
from the rest of the estate, and were to be dealt
with under Schedule D. On the conclusion of
the first year's operations ' X's ' accounts would
show a loss. There would be an excess of
expenditure over receipts, because he did not
cut his timber in the first year. For some
PUBLIC BURDENS 167
years there would be little or nothing to show
in the way of receipts. 'X' would have paid
Income Tax under Schedule A on the rental
value of his woodlands, and he would now come
forward and invoke the aid of Sub-clause 3 of
Clause 38 of the Finance Bill (the clause now
in question).
" Suppose the net Schedule A assessment to
be 500 and the loss shown on the year's account
to be 300, the loss for Income Tax purposes
would be 800, and ' X ' would be repaid the
whole of Schedule A tax, which was on 500,
and the further tax on 300. That was to
say, he was repaid where he had no profit,
but loss. This process would go on until the
tide turned and profits began to be realised.
When profits did begin to be realised he would
be assessed on Schedule D on a three years'
average. In this way, for the whole period
from the first planting until the final cutting
' X ' would have borne Income Tax upon the
actual profits from the woodlands, neither more
nor less." l
The right to have newly planted or replanted
woods assessed under Schedule D as a separate
estate seems to be a real relief to growers of
1 Journal of Forestry, October 1916, Vol. X., No. 4, p. 317.
168 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
timber. It is probable that there will be very
few cases in which it would be advisable to
claim to be assessed under Schedule D for
mature woodlands which during the years of
growth had been assessed under Schedule A.
DEATH DUTIES
Death Duties on timber are at present regu-
lated by 9 of the Finance Act, 1912 (2 & 3
Geo. V. c. 28), which provides :
Where an estate in respect of which Estate
Duty is payable on the death of a person dying
on or after the 30th day of April, 1909, comprises
land on which timber, trees, wood, or under-
wood are growing, the value of such timber,
trees, wood, or underwood shall not be taken
into account, in estimating the principal value
of the estate or the rate of Estate Duty, and
Estate Duty shall not be payable thereon, but
shall at the rate due to the principal value of
the estate be payable on the net moneys (if
any) after deducting all necessary outgoings
since the death of the deceased which may
from time to time be received from the sale of
timber, trees, or wood, when felled or cut during
the period which may elapse until the land on
PUBLIC BURDENS 169
the death of some other person again becomes
liable or would but for this sub-section have
become liable to Estate Duty.
By this Act the Estate Duty is payable at the
date of sale when the timber, trees, or wood
are .sold apart from the land, and by prior Acts
it is also payable if at any time the timber,
trees, or wood are sold with the land. That
is, no Duty is payable until a sale.
The concession given by the Finance Act,
1912, is that the value of the timber is not
aggregated with the value of the estate so as
to raise the scale on which Duty is payable.
The value of the estate without the timber
determines the scale of Duty for both timber
and estate.
No Duty is payable on the sale of underwood
sold separately from the estate, but their value
is not to be taken into account in estimating
the principal value of the estate or the rate
of Estate Duty.
There are two ways of valuing an estate, so
that the value of the timber, trees, wood, or
underwood is not taken into account. In the
first, the estate is valued at the price for which
it would then sell, if offered for sale with the
timber on it, and then the timber, trees, wood,
170 ENGLISH WOODLANDS
or underwood are valued at the price for which
they would sell, if offered for sale, and that
value is deducted from the value of the estate,
and the result is the value of the estate without
taking into account the value of the timber,
trees, wood, or underwood. In the second way
of valuing, the estate is valued as if it were
stripped of the timber, trees, wood, or under-
wood. In most cases trees add very greatly
to the value of an estate, by shelter, ornament,
and facilities for sport, and their removal would
depreciate the estate to an amount much greater
than their sale value. In other cases the removal
of the trees would add to the estate useful
pasture or grazing ground.
It seems clear that a valuation of the trees
should be made at the date of the succession,
and therefore it may be presumed that on the
occasion of sales, Duty will be payable on
that valuation and not on that valuation in-
creased by the subsequent growth. There is
no definition of " necessary outgoings."
INDEX
Accounts, existing woods, 96, 122
formulae, 96
new plantations, 97
stock of timber, 128
Accumulation, 91, 93
Afforestation, 127
available area, 127, 133
benefits claimed, 136
cost, 130
financial results, 128
Agricultural Act, 1896, 160
Alders, 63
Altitude, 4
Annual routine, 120
Ash, 61
Aspect of plantation, 5
Bark, allowance for, 149
Beech, 5
shelter plantations, 85
shade-bearing, 64, 67
under-planting, 64
young trees, 67
Capital expenditure, 131
Climate, 81, 83
Close-planting, 15, 17
Compound interest, 3, 115, 131
Corsican fir, 76
Counting trees, 145
Cubic contents, 143, 147
Customs and Inland Revenue Act,
1890, 166
Death Duties, 168
Density of wood, 29, 37
Diameter growth, 31
Disease, 33
Distance apart of trees, 14, 20, 35
Drainage, 7
Douglas fir, 72
Economy, 3
Elm, 68
Famine, timber, 94
Finance Act, 1912, 168
Finance, 89
accounts, 96
accumulation, 91
compound interest, 3
profit, 95
prospect of increased price, 90,
94
Formulae, 96
Geology of site, 5
German methods, reluctance to
follow, 113
Height, 147, 150
Hop poles, 1 7, 34
Income Tax, 161
Larch, 5
age, 99
best situations, 51, 70
circulation of air, 33, 70
contents of final crop, 100
crop to follow, 52
disease, 33, 48, 53, 69
final clearance, 37
Japanese, 71
management for large size, 37,
49
mixed woods, 43
pure woods, 50
seed, 70
shelter plantations, 85
situation, 5, 51, 70
thinning, 33
under-planting, 66
Mixed woods, 43
Moorlands, 17, 70
Natural regeneration, 52
Nursery, 23
171
172
INDEX
Oak, 57
forecast of future prices, 45, 60,
98
pure and mixed woods, 45
sowing, 58
thinning, 38
under -planting, 65
varieties, 57
Pit-props, 74, 120
Plantations, probable yield, 98, 99
ground plan, 19
receipts from, 100
size, 9, 12
Planting, 3
advantages, 83, 90, 93
by contract, 134
methods, 20
site of old woods, 52, 97
size of trees, 21
table, 152
time for, 18
Ploughing, 8
Poplar, 62
Profit of timber growing, ix, 90,
114
Public Health Act, 1895, 160
Pure woods, 45
Quarter-girth, 143
Quincunx, 20
Rabbits, 13
Rating, 157
Rental yield of plantations, 100
Railway companies, 144
Replanting, 52
Scotch fir, 73
seeds, 74
afforestation, 134
Shelter belts, 81, 84
Silver fir, 76
Sitka spruce, 75
Situation, 6
Small holdings, 127, 134
Soil, 6, 8, 54, 60, 72, 82
Spruce, 75
Struggle for existence, 15
Sycamore, 67
Taper, 150
Thinning, 29, 34
Timber, best form of, 32
profits, 89, 98, 100, 114
Transplants, 19,20
Trenching, 8
Under-planting, 66
Unimproved state, 158
Weeds, 22
Wide-planting, 15, 17
Wire, 12
Woodsy depreciatory opinion of
English, xi, 108
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