© 1963 by Institute of Chartered Foresters
Marginal Aspects of Modern British Forestry1
Research Branch, Forestry Commission
Pressure of population makes the reorganization of the use of all land necessary, including its use for forests. The classical pattern of forestry founded on the management of natural vegetation associations cannot be applied to British forestry where the forests have been destroyed or modified and the soils impoverished by leaching, erosion, and by human usage. At the time of the formation of the Forestry Commission there was little evidence on which to fix limits of suitability for planting.
Research soon showed that alteration of the immediate environment of the tree by drainage, cultivation, and the use of phosphates facilitated the establishment of the crop, and that many exotic species were easier to establish and grew faster than did native species. Thus two concepts of marginality became recognized; the limit at which trees can be established by simple traditional methods and the limit at which they can be established by more elaborate often mechanical methods. Evidence is however scanty to show that the early productivity of these new crops will be maintained. There are basic limiting factors of climate, soil, and species still to be solved. Further the forest must be considered economically sub-marginal if the balance between habitat, healthy growing crop, and marketable product can only be maintained at disproportionate expense.
The use of artificial methods in the creation of forests can only be successful if the safeguards of the natural forest (which have been irretrievably lost) are replaced by artificial methods of control founded on a precise knowledge of what is happening, what should be happening, and how much the two diverge. This calls for more research into habitat, climate, and soil development, the results of which would be available not only to foresters but to all users of land.