56 THE MANAGEMENT OF EPPING FOREST.
had been done and the reasons for it. Putting these speeches together, it would
seem that we could not express the position better than by saying that the
Verderers have been engaged, for the most part, in removing the 'mildewed'
ear in order that he may no longer 'blast his wholesome brother.' There appear
to be few parts of the Forest, if any, which are virgin. They have long been
subjected to pollarding and to pilfering, with the result that there are a great
many unsightly and disfigured trees which are not merely engaged in a struggle
for existence among themselves, but are weakening and killing trees of finer
growth and greater beauty. . . . Immediately after the thinning, one or two
spots certainly looked a little bare, but the near future will cure the crudeness
with a growth of heather and thorn. It was stated, and, indeed, demonstrated,
that in various places where openings have been made the Forest is renewing
itself. Mr. Buxton claimed no more than what is true when he said the Forest
in these parts is not only improved for future centuries, but is very beautiful as
it is."
Emerging on the outskirts of the wood, felled timber was noticed again, lying
in an open space, caused by a forest fire, but which had been illustrated and
written about in the papers as a horrid example of reckless clearing. Mr.
Buxton said that here he thought the only thing to be done would be to tem-
porarily enclose the space from the cattle in order to give Nature a chance of
renewing the woodland from seedlings ; but if they did so he predicted that a cry
would then be raised in the papers that the Verderers were beginning to enclose
the Forest altogether ! He begged his hearers to remember his words for future
guidance.
The ramble was continued until the "New Road" was reached, at a point
where the ugly, straight, and bare "Clay Ride," made by the enclosers, when it
was intended to rear in Monk Wood a settlement of modern villas, runs across
the Forest by "Sand-pit Plain" to Loughton.2 Here the carriages were resumed,
and as the time at the disposal of the meeting would not permit of the whole of
the programme being carried out, orders were given to the drivers to make for
Lodge or Lord's Bushes, Buckhurst Hill, which the Verderers very justly claim
as an example of the beneficial results of systematised thinning, in the wealth of
undergrowth and the healthy appearance of the trees. The place, Mr. Buxton
said, had been thinned four times since the wood had been under the control of
the Epping Forest Committee, and as one proof of the virtue of the treatment he
pointed to the extraordinary luxuriance with which seedling birches were spring-
ing up wherever an opening had been made.
In our own knowledge, from being, twenty years ago, a dark, dismal place,
doomed to the clutches of the speculative builder, with an experimental tramway,
and a broad road (to be bordered with "eligible modern villas"), Lord's Bushes,
as now transformed, is one of the most beautiful and luxuriant woods in the Forest,
and this in spite of its nearness to a large village, and railway bringing down
crowds of excursionists and school children.
Some of the company, including Sir J. Lubbock, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Andrew
Johnston, Mr. McKenzie, Mr. Ellis, and Prof. Fisher, had to leave before the
evening meeting, but the remainder of the party were driven to the Royal
Forest Hotel, at Chingford, where a refreshing high tea awaited them after the
fatigues of the afternoon.
2 One improvement most heartily to be desired and strongly recommended to the Conservators
would be the obliteration of this grievously ugly "ride." It should be ploughed up and planted, so
as to blot out for ever one of the most atrocious projects of vandalism ever conceived in detriment
of a noble "open space," even in these dark ages of Epping Forest History, before the dawn of
"The Judgment" of Sir George Jessell.—Ed.