REFERENCE TO THE HORNBEAMS IN EPPING FOREST. 95
long as the shoots were cut under the commoners' rights of topping
and lopping every fifteen years, this crowding had perhaps little evil
effect; but when these rights were abolished one of two results was
inevitable, either these pollards must be extensively thinned, or their
over-crowded boughs would be drawn up into long, straight, bare
poles, with nothing but some scanty foliage at their summits. This
latter alternative has actually happened in that part of Great Monk-
wood, in which Mr. Maitland tried the experiment of laissez faire,
and the result is disastrous enough.
How pollard hornbeams can recover great grace of outline, if given
free space soon after pollarding, is well shown by some beautiful trees
in Mr. E. N. Buxton's grounds at Knighton. These trees, in addition
to ascending branches, have sent out others horizontally, or rather in
a descending direction, with the spreading spray and nearly all the
beauty of spear trees.
But little, if any, thinning was carried out by the Corporation for
some years after the cessation of the lopping rights, so that even the
best and soundest pollards afterwards selected for preservation had
in those years taken too vertical a direction; and it may be doubted
whether, if left to themselves, though freed from the crowding of
their former neighbours, they will ever rival the beauty of the
Knighton trees.
There can be no doubt that extensive thinning was not only
desirable, but necessary in many parts of the Forest ; but, admitting
this, two questions remain, viz. : (i.) what should be the principle of
selection and (ii.) what should be the treatment of the trees
selected for preservation. One obvious principle, considering the
comparative scarcity of oak in the Forest, has been the preservation
of all examples of that species, even when pollarded. This has
perhaps been carried to an injudicious extreme in places, between
Oak Hill and the Ditches, for example, by the sacrifice of sound
trees of other species for pollard oaks too hopelessly rotten ever to
be worth anything. Then as regards hornbeams, though some of
the most malformed may be worth preserving for their grotesque
appearance, especially if decked with polypody, as a rule the
soundest should certainly be preserved. In any case, no pollard is
immortal, and we may well hope some day to see them replaced by
normally grown trees. With this object, the undergrowth must be
preserved as a protection to natural seedlings," and I would urge the
desirability of planting hornbeam.