Billington's account of the immense losses which were caused by mice to the oaks sown in the Forest of Dean, which is quoted at length by Loudon, pp. 1805–7, shows that in places where mice are numerous it is more economical to plant than to sow; and I have on my own property failed to get anything like a good stand of young oaks by sowing, on account of the ravages of mice and rooks, though every precaution which experience could suggest was taken. I tried dibbling in wheat, and sowing in lines and patches, both on cultivated and uncultivated ground, and have only partial or complete failures to record. In better and lighter soils, and especially in woods of large size where rabbits are kept down, I have seen splendid results from self-sown acorns; and Mr. A.C. Forbes's prize essay on the natural reproduction of woods from seed, published in the Transactions of the English Arboricultural Society, v. 239, should be consulted, as well as Loudon's remarks on the same subject, pp. 1804–5.
Mr. Stafford Howard, C.B., who probably knows more about forestry and has done more to improve the management of the Royal Forests than any Commissioner who preceded him, except, perhaps, Lord Glenbervie, has sent me an excellent photograph of a grove of self-sown oaks on his property at Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire, which has originated from acorns, self sown, in what used to be an osier bed, and which are now about thirty to forty years old. Plate 81 shows their present appearance. On December 29, 1904, Mr. Howard showed me this grove, of which about an acre, containing 139 trees, has been wired in and underplanted with beech at about 6 feet apart. Six trees have been measured and marked with the object of showing whether the future increase of the oaks will pay for the cost of under-planting. As I am not aware that this practice, which in Germany and France is considered good forestry, has ever been properly tested in England, I hope that the results of this experiment will be recorded.
The best illustration of the possibility of converting coppice with standards, into pure oak wood, was shown me in 1900 by Mr. A.C. Forbes in a wood called Derry Hill, on the property of the Marquess of Lansdowne, three miles from Chippenham. In this case the coppice was cut early in the winter, after a good crop of acorns, and completely cleared before the following May. The constant presence of workmen faggoting and cleaning the coppice, not only kept away pheasants and pigeons, but also buried a good many of the acorns; and the soil being suitable for oaks, their growth was so good in the next three years that by cutting away the shoots of the coppice wherever it crowded and overgrew the young oaks, a stand was obtained far thicker, cleaner, and more vigorous than I have ever seen from planted trees. If carefully attended to until the seedlings overtop and smother the remains of the underwood, and provided also the remaining standards are cut and removed before they damage the seedlings, I should expect this wood to become one of the best of its sort in England.[1]
On the property of Dr. Watney, at Buckhold, Berks, I have also seen some
- ↑ On revisiting the place seven years later I found that the growth had not been so good as it promised to be, owing perhaps to the underwood being cut too hard, and the soil having become overgrown with grass.
