THE IMPROVEMENT OF WOODLANDS IN DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY

The history of the woodlands is outlined and a brief account given of their development up to 1945. The paper then describes how rehabilitation has proceeded since by co-operation between owners, foresters, and the Forestry Commission, and what modifications of silvicultu'ral practice have been adopted to overtake the arrears of management resulting from depression before the Second World War and from extensive felling during the war itself. ' I 'HE counties of Dumfries and Wigtown and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright-L can conveniently be divided into (a) the steep-sided higher Silurian and Ordovician hills of the Southern Uplands, with shallow mineral soils on the higher slopes up to the tree line (1,200-1,500 feet), and with loamy boulder clays and moraines on the valley bottoms. Their foothills, with gentle slopes, carry much boulder clay and rarer shallow soils on outcrops, with peat formation general on level ground, (b) The granite and hard auriole rocks of the Galloway highlands, with much outcrop and broken terrain, screes, moraines, and many basins filled with boulder clay, peat, and water. Their foothills with more even slopes have boulder clay in small pockets between outcrops of Silurian rocks, (c) The low valleys, some geologically ancient, as in Nithsdale and Annandale, the lo