10 OCTOBER 1947, Page 14

The Absent Keeper

How surprising are some of the changes that influence preservation ! It is pointed out, for example, that a number of flowers have quite dis- appeared for the reason that game preservation has been given up. When the woods were looked after and the rides kept clear a number of flowers, and indeed birds, found in them their optimum of conditions, protection without loss of sun and air. Daffodils, anemones, bluebells with other flowers beside spread Turkey carpets over the more open spaces. Today in some of the woods richest in natural history all forms of coppicing have been given up, and the blackberry has taken charge. In a particular instance it is pointed out that Daffodil Wood has in consequence lost all its daffodils. There is a middle way between the scientific regimen- tation of woods of the German sort and the be-brambled tangle of such neglected woods ; and this middle way found by game preservers is trodden by no successors.