ENGLISH FORESTS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 124, 29 May 1933, Page 9

ENGLISH FORESTS

25,000 ACRES PLANTED

SOURCE OF NEW WEALTH

The planting by the British Foresty Commission of a great forest, such as William the Conqueror made iri~ the glades of Hampshire 850 years ago, is being enacted now on the loneliest heaths of East Anglia. Already the new-born, woods of Thetford Chase, greater than the New Forest itself, says a "Morning Post" correspondent, are covering the. gentle hills and plains along the Little Oouso with a bluegreen haze to the farthest horizons. ' , Within 40 years this brown "breckland" .of the Norfolk, and Suffolk borders in,, which, farming is possible only iv tiny patches because of the barrenness of soil will become beautiful with forests, its roads, lined with laburnum, cherry, crab-apple, and wild roses. But the strange wildness that was "breckland" will pass for.ever. Thetford Chase, like the lesser forests that are rising, will be moro than, a picnic spot. It will lie a, source of national wealth, a means of defence in. future wars, and the new home of a vanished breed of Englishman—the true woodman. ,_ At Thetford miners and farm labourers who might otherwise be unemployed are learning to tend seedling oaks. Scattered through the forest there are already 165 cottages for woodmen and their families,' each with its lands attached. Outside the. forest sawmills, papermills, and timber industries will spring up to deal with the products and needs of tho forest, when every tree cut down is replaced by more, and trees of every age flourish and supply timber. The winter planting of 1600 additional acres, has recently been completed, but it is possible for a novice to. stand in the middle of a million pines and notice nothing but the lank brown grass. As summer waxea the pines will shoot up, but the bracken, overtopping them with ease, will be cut down by the woodmen. Ten years hence the pines will bo so tall that the bracken will perish in their shadow. In some places there aro forest nurseries covering 120 acres to serve the needs of the 25,000 acres of planted forest. Of acorns, a large quantity, was collected last autumn by the wives and children of the woodmen, and now this planting is beginning. After two years in a nursery the young oaks will be transplanted to the forest lands. There is a perpetual fight against the "natural enemies" of the acorn. Everything from green fly to cockchafers, from mice to roc deer, attempts to devour the young forest, so the foresters soak all their pine seed in red lead before planting it, to give it an unattractive taste, ana then build tiny fences round to keep the mice even from the taste. OTJAEDIN& AGAINST" RABB?TS. Cockchafers snake their tunnels underground1; and trenches are sunk to thwart them. Babbits are even more of a pest, but it is the boast of the fourteen whole-time "warronera" of the forest that there is not a rabbit in all the 25,000 planted acres. When new land is planted it is first fenced so that the rabbit is excluded. Those inside the fences are exterminated. Protection from the deer is also provided. Finally, there is the danger from fire. The ' smouldering cigarette or match carelessly thrown away, the wayside fire not properly put out, the pipe-ash knocked out on a pole, may destroy the growing dividends of the nation and endanger the lives of scores of workers in tho forests.