194 ON ENGLISH FOBESTBY. [Jan. 



painful one. The unfortunate man who has to sell EngHsh 

 timber of any kind whatever finds himseK at the mercy of the 

 buyers. If he has been at the pains and cost of a valuation, he 

 finds it no rule. He gets so little offered for his trees that he 

 thinks they may as well stand. If he has "thrown " them himself, 

 he has to wait long for a man to come in to his terms. A fine- 

 grown Oak a century old looks as if it ought to be valuable, while 

 you may be thankful if you are offered a five-pound note for it. 

 Our Fir plantations yield scaffold poles, but no good builder will 

 use English Pine when American and Baltic are so vastly better 

 and everywhere obtainable. Heart of Oak used to be called 

 Enghsh iron, but English iron has thrust it quite out of the 

 market. Even little faggots for lighting our fires are made up of 

 the refuse of our saw-mills and workshops. We have known a 

 good housekeeper forty miles from London, surrounded by 

 thousands of acres of Fir, Birch, and other trees, much of it good 

 for nothing but burning, get all her firewood from a greengrocer 

 in PimMco. She got what she wanted, and just as she wanted 

 it, and she knew what it cost, without all the trouble of cutting 

 down, lopping, carrying, sawing, or making into faggots, piling, 

 and what not. Half a century ago there were long belts of Fir 

 plantation stretching over our chalk downs. They were evidently 

 failing for want of nourishment. A whole tree, or " pole," as it 

 would be called, could be bought for sixpence, or for fourpence ; 

 the former if the seller was to cut it down and carry it, the latter 

 if you were to do this yourself. Even so you would find it 

 cheaper to get firewood in almost any other way. 



' On the Continent home-grovtm timber has much protection by 

 circumstances as well as by law in the competition with foreign 

 timber. Coal is not so accessible and cheap anj^where as in this 

 island. The State here has no forcts to protect for its own sake. 

 The sustentation of the forets for the sake of the Government, the 

 dynasty, and the noblesse was not without its benefits to France 

 and other continental countries, though industry suffered, and 

 society was endangered by the taxation of some classes for the 

 profit of others. The French now find they have reduced their 

 forets too much for the climate, and have to replace them. It is 

 our gradual and spontaneous improvement that cleared our own 

 woods, and has now left us much less woodland or open country 

 than we had a century ago, or within hving memory. Common 

 land of all sorts has long been unpopular with economists, and 

 only popular with communists and a certain scliool of sentimental 

 politicians. Landowners, too, have waged war vvdth commons 

 for their share in breeding poachers, paupers, vagrants, and the 



