WOODS. There are in England many old natural woods remaining, besides the royal forests, although the great demand for timber during the last war has greatly thinned them of their finest trees. When woods were abundant and covered a great portion of the land little attention was paid to the increase or preservation of the trees : kings and lords of manors readily granted to their tenants rights of com monage, with the privilege of lopping the branches, always supposing them to he useless dead wood. The consequence of this is still to be seen in all old forests, especially the royal forests, which never were enclosed or protected. Many fine old trees, whose age can scarcely be guessed at, which are very picturesque objects and. a fit study for the landscape-painter, have evidently been lopped, at some time or other, for the sake of the wood for fuel, and for want of care have probably never been in such a state as would afford fine timber for ship-building. Windsor Forest, which has only been inclosed since 1813, affords many specimens of noble trunks now hollowed out by time and the admission of water from above, which might probably still be sound and solid, had they been duly protected, and only those branches carefully cut out which were dead and showed decay. The dates of the inclosures of different parts of Windsor Great Park can be readily discovered by observing the form of the oldest trees.
In many extensive woods on private estates the want of care may be readily seen at the first inspection. Oak-woods are chiefly found in stiff clay soils, where the water is apt to accumulate. by which the roots are injured. and the trees decay before they have attained their full growth The water should be carefully let of by open drains and ditches, which should be regularly examined and cleared out every year before winter. The surface being thus kept dry, the timber, as well as the underwood, will grow much more rapidly, and the increased value of the wood will amply repay the outlay. Cattle should be carefully excluded from all woods; they destroy the young shoots by cropping them, and du much damage to the underwood. At the time when acorns and beech-mast are plentiful, pigs may be turned in without danger ; they will turn up the ground in search of their food, and thus bury beech-mast and acorns, which may vegetate, and grow in time into flue trees ; for it is well known that an oak raised from an acorn is always hardier and better rooted than one which is raised in a nursery and transplanted in the woods; and the same may be said of beech raised from the seed.
The sweet chesuut is one of the most useful trees in a wood, pro vided it has room to grow. Its timber, when of a certain age, is as
durable as oak, and the shoots which spring up from the old trunks cut down give the most useful and profitable coppice-wood. When it is recollected that a coppice may be cut advantageously every tenth year, if a calculation be made of the value of growing timber after many years, it will be found that the underwood, properly managed, pays fully as well as the timber. It is usual to cut down such trees as begin to show decay at top, when the coppice is cut ; but it is better to anticipate this decay, and cut them when they have ceased to increase from year to year as much as the interest of the money they would sell for amounts to, For example : Suppose that an oak stand ing measures fifty cubic feet, and with top, lop, and bark, may be worth 101. If it does not increase above two cubic feet in a year, it will not be profitable to let it stand : but if, by cutting down others which interfere with the spread of its branches, its growth can be promoted, it may probably increase so much as to pay a good interest on its value ; in which case it would be a loss to cut it. There is a period when the increase of the wood in a tree is a maximum, and this depends en soil and situation. The head and branches contribute lunch to the growth of the truck ; and unless they have room to spread, tho increase derived from the action of the leaves must be checked. On this depends the practieeof gradually thinning out young woods as the branches spread, the object being to let in as much air as is necessary, without leaving too great a apace between the head of one tree and its neighbours. As soon as the branches begin to approach towards thistle of smother tree, room must be made, by cutting out those trees which appear inferior in or in health. In the manage ment of young plantations [PLANTING , it is 1% question whether it is more profitable to cut down trees at t m ago of thirty or forty years and replace them with young plants, or to let them arrive at their full size, which, for oaks, will take 150 or 200 years. The calculation is made on the annual increase of the wood, which is said to be greatest when the tree is about thirty years old. It has been often supposed that the slower a tree grows the stronger the wood will be; but this appears to be a mistake. Some wood taken from a very rapidly growing oak, and some from one which, having been headed down as a pollard, had grown slowly, were tried by the action of a very powerful hydraulic press, and the wood of the quicker-growing tree was found to resist the pressure much longer before it was broken or crushed.