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6. — The Products of Hektfoedshibe. 



By the Rev. James C, Clutterbuck, M.A. 



Communicated by A. T. Beett, M.D., President. 



[Read 10th January, 1878.] 



"When it was suggested that I should read a second paper before 

 this Society, the Products of Hertfordshire seemed to be a subject 

 on which I might have something to say. As in the case of the 

 neighbourhood of Watford, the county may be divided into two 

 parts — that to the south being covered by the Tertiary beds, that 

 to the north being Chalk, for the most part covered with loam, 

 gravel, and some outlying patches of the Tertiary beds m situ, its 

 northern limit verging on the Upper Greensand and Gault clay. 



This geological condition will rule most of the natural and 

 artificial products of the county. Of the natural products the 

 forestry claims the first place. Here I am met with the dilficulty 

 that this ground has already, happily for this Society, been occu- 

 pied in a great measure by Canon Gee. Nevertheless, without 

 treading too closely on his steps, something still remains to be said 

 on the conditions, geological and physical, under which some of 

 the forestry of Hertfordshire has been produced. 



The chief natural product of all countries is their forestry. It 

 would be difiicult to separate the strictly indigenous trees from 

 those introduced from foreign countries. The oak, elm, and ash 

 may at least be classed with the former. As a boy, more than 

 sixty years ago, I often saw the Panshanger Oak, then without a 

 trace of decay upon it. The Burnt Oak in Oxhey-lane, though 

 a wreck, was still alive at that same period. A younger tree, I 

 believe, now marks the division of the two counties. If I re- 

 member rightly, the old tree was spoken of as such in the reign of 

 Charles the Second. The oaks growing, as this, on the Tertiary 

 beds, for the most part thrive better than those in the Chalk dis- 

 trict, which, as woodland or hedgeroAV timber, with some exceptions, 

 are of a stunted and unthrifty growth. Some of the finest oaks I 

 remember to have seen in Hertfordshire were growing on the out- 

 cropping Gault, or, as sometimes called, oak-tree clay, at Hinks- 

 worth, at the extreme north of the county. I'he elm known as 

 the Hertfordshire Elm has been called the weed of the county. 

 With a greater development on deeper soils, it seeks its nourish- 

 ment by spreading its roots nearer the surface than the oak. The 

 Hertfordshire Ash bears a good name, and fetches a high price as 

 wheelwrights' timber, though it is no favourite with cultivators of 

 the soil. We know that it formed the shafts of the spears of our 

 Saxon forefathers, proving at least its anti(iuity as a product of 

 this county. The beech, we are told, on the authority of Caesar 

 (as stated by Canon Gee), is not indigenous, yet no tree covers a 

 lai'ger extent of ground, even to the exclusion of the undergrowth 



