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16 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
following ; and as the trees are growing fast, considers that it might now be valued at
the same price per acre. Sir John considers, from experience in his own plantations,
that planted beech will do as well as when naturally seeded. His old woodman, now
dead, was for long of a contrary opinion, but changed his mind latterly from his own
experience.
It is necessary to say something about the actual conditions and returns from
the Buckinghamshire beech woods, which have been held up by some writers as an
example of what may be done by following the system known asjardinage in France,
which consists in thinning out the saleable trees every ten or twelve years and
allowing natural seedlings to come up in their places.
During a visit of the Scottish Arboricultural Society on July 30, 1903, to this
district, in which I took part, it was stated by one of the principal land agents in the
district that £2 per acre was a common return over an average of years on woods
managed on this system, which seems to have grown up during the last sixty years,
partly through the legal disability of the owners to make clear fellings, and partly
owing to the regular demand for clean beechwood of moderate size for chair-making.
But what I saw myself led me to believe that though such a return may have been
obtained for a short period on the best class of beech woods, it is not likely to
continue, and that if an owner had a free hand and was not liable for waste, clear
felling of the mature timber about once in 60-100 years would probably in the long-
run be a better system. And this opinion was confirmed by Mr. George James,
agent for the Hampden estate, who thinks that 153. per acre, which is about the
average rateable value of these woods, is as much as they are actually worth, and
that when you get fine timber clean and well grown, as on Mr. Drake's estate at
Amersham, many natural seedlings do not occur, but that on Earl Howe's estate
at Dunn where, forty years ago, all or nearly all of the timber was cut, there is a
good growth of young seedlings.
Professor Fisher of Cooper's Hill has written a very instructive article 1 on the
Chiltern Hill beech woods, in which he states that these are probably the northern
and western British limit of the indigenous beech forest, which was probably
eradicated during the glacial period in the north of England; though remains found
in the submarine forest-bed at Cromer, in Norfolk, prove that it existed before this
period farther east. He quotes measurements taken by Mr. A. S. Hobart
Hampden, now director of the Forest School at Dehra Dun, India, which show
that on the average it takes ninety years in this district for beech to attain 3 feet
in girth at breast height, and that a full crop of seed cannot be expected from trees
much younger than eighty years when grown in dense order. He agrees with me
that in many of the woods, including those which belong to Eton College, over-
thinning has been prevalent, and states that rabbits and brambles have in many
cases prevented the natural regeneration from being as complete as it must be to keep
such woods in profitable condition under the decennial selection system. 2 And as
1 Land Agents Record, April 9 and 16, 1904.
2 A paper by Mr. L. S. Wood, in the Trans. Eng. Arbor. Soc. v. 285 (1903), gives many particulars of the beech
woods in this district.
Fagus 1 7
the furniture factories of High Wycombe are now largely supplied with American
birch and other foreign timber, which can be imported at a cheaper rate than beech
is locally worth, I am inclined to think that where these woods have become too thin
to be profitable, they would pay better if the seeding of ash which grows well on
this land though not to the largest size was encouraged, and the vacant spaces
filled up with larch, which, when mixed with beech, usually keeps healthy and grows
to a larger size than it does alone.
It is probable, however, that as our coal supplies diminish, the value of firewood
in England will increase, and as beech is one of the best firewoods we have, and
one of the most economical to convert into suitable sizes, I should advise its being
more largely planted in districts where coal is distant and costly.
As a nurse to other forest trees, especially larch and oak, it has a value greater
than any deciduous tree, because, if not allowed to overtop its neighbours, its shade
and the decay of its leaves preserve the soil in a cool, moist, and fertile condition.
On poor calcareous and chalk soil it is specially valuable, and should be planted in
mixture with most kinds of other trees, provided rabbits can be permanently excluded;
but on account of its thin bark it is never safe in a deep snow or in hard winters from
rabbits, which will bark the roots of trees 100 years old as readily as young trees.
The distance apart at which beech should be left in plantations, must depend
on the goodness of the soil and on the size at which the trees can be most pro
fitably cut. The better the land the thicker it may stand, but on really poor soil
it grows so slowly if crowded, that as soon as it has attained a sufficient height and
cleaned itself from branches up to 30-50 feet, it should be thinned to about 150 trees
or even less to the acre. And I have often observed that on soils which are not
naturally favourable for beech, it will not under any circumstances grow so straight
and clean as in woods where natural regeneration is easy.
Notwithstanding what Loudon and some German foresters say about the beech
being unfit for coppice-wood, I can show beech stools of considerable age which
have been regularly cut over at intervals of about eighteen years for at least a
century; whilst the growth of shoots from the stool on the dry rocky bank in Chat-
combe Wood, near Seven Springs, on the Cotswold Hills, is faster than that of ash
similarly treated. In the mountains of Calabria also, I have seen hillsides covered
with beech scrub which appeared to have been coppiced for firewood for a very long
period. Therefore, in cases where the beech has been planted merely as a nurse
to oak or other trees, and there is no deciduous tree better adapted to this purpose,
I should not hesitate to cut over the trees if they seemed likely to smother their
neighbours, with the expectation of getting a quantity of excellent firewood or small
poles fit for turning, fifteen to twenty years later.
As a clipped hedge the beech is useful, but does not grow so fast at first as the
hornbeam. An excellent example of this fact may be seen near the entrance to
Dr. Watney's place at Buckholt, near Pangbourne, where the two are growing
in the same hedge; the beech treated in this way keeps its leaves all the winter
and makes good shelter. 1
1 Cf. Loudon, loc, fit. p. 1965.
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