It was high time an enquiry about the New Forest
was set on foot. It is well, moreover, in that connection to remember that " forest" does not necessarily mean woodland—compare Forest of Dartmoor, which has only rare plantations, apart from Wistman's Wood. The New Forest is in reality a vast tract of moorland interspersed with woods—a true hunting forest. It was gradually deteriorating even before the war. Self-sown pines were disfiguring the heath lands, whole woods were rotting for want of attention, and hollies, which every New Forest man hates, were taking their place. In the Forest enclaves houses, some of them hideous, were growing thicker. And now a second war bequcathes its legacy of plundered woods, of lawns defaced for the sake of the few years' fertility they possessed, of abandoned dumps, gun-sites and aerodromes. The exercise of larger powers than the Forestry Commissioners command is plainly called for.
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