iv. formerly stable pollard boles carried young growth. Now the boles are
unstable through carrying 100 - 120 year old poles of great weight.
v. in recent years, we have seen numerous wind-thrown pollards, and
promoted pollards readily succumbing to drought
vi. once there was grazing by about a thousand cattle. Now there are but a
hundred or two
vii. the dozen or so wild fallow deer in 1878 increased to a herd of 270 in
1902 but are now more or less extinct
viii. the high rabbit population of a hundred years ago is now very low by
comparison
ix. nutrients used to be removed from the Forest in wood and meat: now
they are stored in the Forest soils, herbage and wood
x. the Forest had narrow paths across it and the surrounding population
was low: it is now criss-crossed with wide rides and horse-tracks and few
places are free from regular human, equine and canine disturbance.
Later Buxton says: "But more and more as time passes the scientific in-
terest of the Forest must depend upon longer and longer rotations of natural
change of crop.''
However, it is doubtful that a flora and fauna evolved over a thousand years
of pollarding and grazing can survive an immediate change to a 200 - 300 year
rotation and limited grazing.
Qvist (1956) also wrote on this topic. He related management policy to the
attainment of the ' natural aspect', and accepted that shade was a major cause
of the decline in herbs and shrub (and their birds and invertebrates) but did not
see this as a defect in the Conservators' policy.
Buxton does not speculate on what that "scientific interest produced by
longer and longer rotations" will be. If it is to be that of Little Monk Wood or
the uncut pollard groves of Bury Wood rather than that of the part recently
pollarded, it will be a greatly impoverished interest, and a great loss to nature
conservation.
Barbara Cockrell undertook a summer's field work for the Nature Con-
servancy Council in 1975 to record the state of three sites in the Forest and thus
obtain for the first time an insight into the relationship between soils,
management, light, ground flora and invertebrate fauna. The study was not
exhaustive nor were the sites strictly comparable, but it provides basic quan-
titative data to guide management and shows the way to further systematic
research. The sites chosen were plots in Little Monk Wood, to the south of the
western end of the Clay Road and parts of the pollarded and unpollarded
section of Woodman's Glade in Bury Wood. The results are summarised in
Table 9. A more detailed account is lodged with the Nature Conservancy
Council, Colchester.
The implications for nature conservation and for tree and shrub growth are
self-evident: although there are hazards attending re-pollarding after a long
break in the cycle (death and fire) the rejuvenation of the tree crop more than
compensates within a few years providing pollarding continues. The benefits to
wildlife are the maintenance of large populations of the commoner herbs, birds
75