82
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS,
DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, MARCH 27th, 1897,
By DAVID HOWARD, J.P., F.C.S.
[Abstract.]
PERHAPS it may be excused in one who has known and
loved Epping Forest so long as I have, to mention it yet
again, and to call attention to the remarkable instance of the
recuperative powers of nature shown in the past year in the
growth of our woodlands.
In the early summer nothing could exceed the desolation of
a large portion of the forest. Swarms of caterpillars had eaten
every leaf of the hornbeams and oaks in considerable tracts of
woodland, and it was difficult to see how such desolation could
fail to leave most permanent marks upon the vitality of the
forest; yet by the end of the summer the very same trees shewed
an exceptional richness of verdure.
The dry, cool spring seems to have produced exactly the
check in the development of the leaf that renders it most liable
to the attacks of caterpillars, but the cold was not severe enough
to inconvenience these pests of vegetation. The continual rain
of the later summer came in time, however, completely to change
the aspect of things, and produced a second growth of most
exceptional richness, the leaves continuing in full vigour so long
that the year, in spite of its unfavourable beginning, seems to
have been a very healthy one for the trees.
Now, I would only venture to touch very briefly on the
complexity of the problems of forestry that such common and
apparently trivial matters as these suggest. This problem which
we thus saw worked out before our eyes raises a good many very
practical points of interest. As it happened, owing to the wetness
of the later season, no great harm resulted, but the effect of a
dry summer and autumn might have been very disastrous to the
forest. It may be said that these are the natural vicissitudes of
Nature, and that we cannot interfere with their operation. Is
this quite certain ? With whatever intention, man has been
interfering with the forest life, for better or worse, for 2,000 years
at least, and it is difficult to say what is really natural now. A