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EPPING FOREST
least a majority of them, who were consulted on
this and other points in 1894, concurred. Their
words are as follows :—" We are opposed to any
artificial planting in the Forest," and four out of
the five experts signed the following rider :—" As
we have expressed a strong opinion against the
replanting of the Forest in the ordinary sense, we
think there is no need for a nursery, and that it
should be discontinued."
The Policy of Thinning.—The leading
fact to bear in mind in connection with this ques-
tion is, that an entirely altered state of things
was introduced by the Epping Forest Act, under
which the ancient practice of pollarding was
abolished. As long as the tops and branches
were removed every few years, it mattered little
how closely ranked the stems stood. Under no
circumstances could trees so treated attain pictur-
esque growth before they were again mutilated.
The great difficulty has been to cope adequately
with the new conditions involved by the sudden
arrest of all pollarding in 1889. From that date
the whole of the lopped trees grew on together to
their mutual injury, and to the destruction of
much that was better worth preserving. Then
lateral branches began to die from overcrowding,
and in a few years only a few attenuated branches,
struggling upwards to the light, would have re-
mained. Moreover, the undergrowth, for want of
sunshine and moisture, was disappearing. After
twenty years' work a different state of things
prevails, and nobody would recommend that the
same energetic action to meet the emergency
should be continued indefinitely. It is not my
purpose to revive the controversies of two or
three years ago. I am content to leave it to
time to justify what has been done; but for
purposes of comparison I will quote what a
competent observer wrote in 1864 on the con-
ditions that prevailed in the Forest at that
date. Speaking of the privilege of lopping,
the writer remarks: " It is continued to this
day in certain parishes, and the consequence is