on sometimes see headlines about farmers' organisations protesting against some aspect of forestry. But forestry is farming, too. Not just a pleasant amenity. It does, however, have an aesthetic appeal of its' own, for some people almost a spiritual significance. Not that this was evident when Chatsworth Estate in England first organised Countryside Days for Schools. At the first, of these, seven years ago, the forester was explaining how woods were planted, thinned and the final crop eventually felled. This brought hostile reactions from both children, and teachers. "Do you enjoy killing trees? Don't you feel guilty? Couldn't you let them die before you cut them down? Why do you use chainsaws? Wouldn't axes be cheaper? Why don't you blow up the trees - wouldn't it be quicker?" And, wrote the author of the article, no less than the Duchess of Devonshire, the chatelaine, "A teacher asked: You have to plant woods? I thought that trees grew from seed." The attitude that managed woods amounts to legalised vandalism has changed now, she writes. In Ireland, too, we are going through our own educational experience on forestry. The idea that this should be confined to obscure boggy areas which were good for nothing else, has given way to more enlightened attitudes. The Farmers Journal itself gives space to consideration of two publications from the Irish Timber Growers' Association and prints a large panel showing various types of soils and the trees that are best planted there, and much more.
And and enormous thanks must be due not only to Coillte and its willing hand to amateur efforts, its enthusiastic staff, but to The Tree Council of Ireland and many other organisations. Some day we'll see an official roll of honour.
Just now a word to Crann and its offspring Oak Glen. Tony Carey, who has been with it from well before the first planting in November 1990, by the then President elect Mary Robinson, sent on the latest bright, informative, brochure. "Oak Glen is a unique concept to re establish an oak forest reminiscent of those long lost woodlands which once covered Ireland." Send £10 to Oak Glen, c/o Crann, Banagher, Co Offaly (tel/fax 0509 51718). You get a certificate, a number, and you can go and identify your own tree. Or rather trees, at first, for six have to be planted. Eventually five will be felled, leaving the best to grow on and be a perpetual monument and poem to you or to whoever you nominate. Ideal for a birthday. a Christmas present or just a mark of kinship or friendship. Oak Glen, as you know, is in Glencree, Co Wicklow.