7. Where injuries are to be feared from the treading and tramping of the cattle, the intervals between grazing should be longer, as also on steep slopes during damp weather favouring the loosening and dislodgment of the soil.

It may, however, be remarked that, even on the Continent, woodland grazing has now lost much of the importance it once had agriculturally. The acknowledged superiority of stall-feeding, the increase in the number of, and the improvement in, the meadows, and the cultivation of feeding-stuffs, have in many localities almost caused woodland grazing to be a thing of the past. It is only in mountainous districts that it is still of some importance, where the rearing of cattle is extensively engaged in, and where there is usually a dearth of meadow-land; but there the freshness of the soil on the one hand, and the atmospheric humidity on the other, combine to produce a strong growth of grass within the forests. In such places woodland grazing is still carried on to a considerable extent, and very often without the enforcement of any of the above-mentioned protective precautions; for whilst the rich growth of grass and the usual crops of conifers tend to minimise the damage done, the injury to the forest is of much less importance from a national-economic point of view than the maintenance of the cattle-rearing industry. (Protection of Woodlands, 1893, p. 87.)

II. Damage by Game.-In British rural economy more attention is generally given to game-preserving than to Forestry, even in parts of the country specially suitable for growing timber for profit. In many such places, however, there can be no doubt that a higher rental is received from shootingtenants than is otherwise obtainable. Game-preserving, as customary on most large estates in Britain, is incompatible with profitable Forestry; and where rabbits are allowed to abound, it is almost impossible that woodlands can ever show anything but a dead loss, properly chargeable to the game account. On many estates thinning operations are prohibited from being carried out at the proper time, for fear of disturbing the game, although there is no real necessity for any such extreme prohibition of work in the plantations.

There is only one form of British sport which is really of some advantage to the woodlands, and that is the preservation of foxes, which help to keep down rabbits and hares. Otherwise, all forms of game-preservation tend to disturb the balance of nature (e.g., shooting of vermin by gamekeepers), and of course result in more damage being done than would else be the case.

It very often happens that after enclosures are made and planted the stems of the young Oak, Ash, Maple, Hazel, &c., have their bark gnawed, and the tops are eaten off Larch, Pine, and Spruce. This is more especially the case. in winter, when snow lies on the ground. Although the forester may point this out, his complaints are seldom of much use, because the gamekeeper protests that there are very few hares or rabbits; but even a few inside a large enclosure very soon multiply, and do a great amount of damage. If groundgame, in particular, were kept down more than at present, planting operations would cost less, and their results would be much more satisfactory and profitable.

In England hares and rabbits, as well as heath or moor game, are protected by the Game laws, though no close time is fixed. In Scotland the same applies to deer, hares, and rabbits. In Ireland there is a statutory close time for deer and hares.

Sport and Forestry are not necessarily antagonistic; on the contrary, they are closely related, and may easily be combined with profit. There is

less shooting, it is true; but there is much better sport, in the true sense of the term, in the large forests of Continental Europe than is anywhere obtainable in Britain. The wild boar, the red-deer, and the roebuck shooting, enjoyable in Continental woodlands, is in all essential points (except the mere size of the bag) a far more sportsmanlike amusement than the shooting of very artificially preserved game in most parts of Britain. And the antlers of stags are far heavier and handsomer in woodlands than when the deer-forests consist only of heathery wastes. When there are extensive woodlands for game to roam about and feed in, the evils that are so marked in small woods and plantations become greatly diminished, while the sport offered is at the same time of a higher class. Existing deer-forests in the Highlands of Scotland. might, therefore, quite easily be planted without any danger of ruining the sport.

Red-deer and roe-deer, hares and rabbits, and feathered game, all injure woodlands to a greater or less extent. The nature and extent of the damage of course varies greatly, according to the kind of game, and it can always easily be kept in check by reducing the head maintained.1

1. Red-Deer (Cervus elaphus) damage woods by biting off buds and young shoots, by gnawing the bark of poles in winter, and by stripping the bark in spring and summer. The nibbling of buds and shoots kills young plants at once, and when often repeated it cripples and stunts older plants, and interferes greatly with their future growth. In Oak- and Beech-woods they eat a good many acorns and beech-nuts, and soon become clever at finding and turning up seed sown for artificial reproduction; while they are fond of browsing on the young seed-leaves in Beech-woods undergoing natural regeneration. The saplings or poles used as "fraying-stocks," when rubbing the velvet from their antlers in July and August, or when they "fray" at the time of rutting in September and October, are more or less stripped of their bark and often killed outright (Fig. 100 b). Oak, Ash, Maple, Sycamore, and Beech are the kinds of trees which deer prefer to gnaw, while softwoods are naturally preferred as fraying-stocks, preference being given to those of such a size as to bend slightly under the pressure applied to them. The gnawing takes place horizontally, the deer turning their heads sideways and nibbling the whole of one side of the bark on poles up to a good size, so long as the rind is soft and sappy. Red-deer also tread down and damage young Oak, Beech, &c., that have been sown in strips or bands, often following the horizontal lines sown on hillsides, and doing a lot of damage when a herd of deer has thus made a run for any length of time.

The greatest damage done by red-deer, however, is when they strip the bark of poles and trees in woods. They chiefly attack young, smooth-barked, broad-leaved, and coniferous poles, especially Spruce. In winter the hungry deer both gnaw and peel the bark at about the height of their head, or higher if much snow is on the ground, and the gnawed stems then show plain

1 What may be considered "a reasonable head of game" varies according to circumstances. In Continental woodlands it may be taken as on the average about one red-deer, or two fallow-deer, or four roe-deer, for every 150 acres of woods.

VOL. II.

B

DAMAGE BY GAME.

horizontal marks of teeth, with narrow lines of bark and cambium between. But far more injurious is the bark-stripping in spring and summer while the sap is in flow. The bark is then usually bitten through somewhat low down, and the deer moves back, holding on firmly with its teeth until a strip of rind from 2 or 3 to 6 ft. long tears off. Sometimes the lower end bitten through is 4 to 6 in. broad and more than half the circumference of the stem in breadth, but the strip gradually becomes narrower and more wedge-shaped until it finally comes away from the stem, often at a considerable height, when it is eaten by the deer. Gnawing and stripping in winter are no doubt often done to obtain some tonic when hay-feeding is general. But as both this and also the spring and summer stripping are chiefly done by the stags, it may possibly have some connection with the setting of their antlers. The barking of poles in summer is very much more destructive than the slighter injuries inflicted by gnawing in winter. As soon as the poles begin to form thick corky bark, deer cease their peeling.

Spruce-woods from 20 to 40 years old are specially liable to injury, then 15- to 20-year-old Beech, Silver Fir, Weymouth Pine, and Oak so long as the bark is smooth. Larch, Ash, Elm, Maple, and Sycamore are less liable to be attacked; and Scots Pine, Birch, and Alder are damaged least of all. Among conifers, Silver Fir makes the best recovery, while Scots Pine usually remains stunted after being nibbled. Young poles with a smooth rind are always attacked soonest, and the danger ends when thick rough bark is formed. The danger is greatest about the time of the first thinning of a plantation, and clean, well-grown, dominant poles are more likely to be damaged than poles still rough with twigs. Crops of poor growth are therefore to some extent protected by their numerous twigs and branches and their coarse bark. Stripping chiefly occurs in deer-parks or in enclosures where the deer are fenced in to keep them from the fields. game has poor natural grazing in winter, and has to be fed on hay, the Where a large head of damage is much greater than when a moderate head of deer can roam about in the open. In mountainous tracts, where there is more varied grazing, damage is usually comparatively slight.

Damaged poles often rot far up into the stem, and are liable to breakage from wind, snow, or ice. Even when this does not happen, the lower end of the stem is often useless for timber up to 15 or 20 ft. high.

Continental Notes.-Damage by deer was first mentioned in German forest literature about the middle of last century with reference to the Spruce forests of the Harz Mountains. But it has now gradually become of more importance, and in many localities, especially in deer-parks, it has assumed such proportions as very materially to reduce the outturn from Spruce-woods, which suffer most in this way. Bark-peeling in winter is probably in most cases due to want of sufficient nourishment or of variety in food; and in this latter case it may be diminished by laying down numerous salt-licks in convenient spots. Summer-stripping, however, is probably due to the daintiness of the deer in quest of either the sugar or the tannic properties contained in the rind. merely a continuation of the practice begun during the winter, or may simply arise from But it may perhaps be wantonness. Occasional stripping may easily develop into a habit, soon imitated by other animals in the herd; and this can only be put an end to by shooting those deer found stripping.