FOREST DESTRUCTION 



Thus the forest was being burnt or cleared for cultivation. 

 It was devastated by black cattle, goats, and other animals, 

 and it was regularly exploited for fuel and building every 

 day by every family for centuries. 



It is not, therefore, surprising that the ancient forests 

 in Britain have disappeared. Dr. Henry mentions one 

 square mile of virgin forest on the Clonbrock estate in 

 Ireland. The Silva Caledonica of the Romans is said to 

 exist in Scotland at the Blackwood of Rothiemurchus, 

 at Achnacarry, and in a few other places. Of the original 

 oak forest, which covered most of England and Southern 

 Scotland, not a vestige (so far as is known to the writer) 

 remains to-day. 



There are in places very ancient forests. A few miles 

 from Retford are considerable remains of Sherwood Forest, 

 which is for ever associated with that genial bandit Robin 

 Hood. One huge oak (called the Major) has or used to have 

 a keeper always on guard and paid by Lord Manvers, but 

 there are hundreds of aged oaks all round it. Then there 

 is the Knightwood Oak and some other ancients in the New 

 Forest. 



But it is not ceii:ain that these even date so far back 

 as the time of Canute, for so far as the New Forest is con- 

 cerned, it seems that this was formed either by Canute or by 

 William I. The Saxons seem to have destroyed most of the 

 English forests. 



In Scotland oak forest existed as far north as the Island 

 of Lewis, in Caithness, Dornoch, Cromarty, and along Loch 

 Ness, as well as in every county south of these.^ The deer 

 forests and grouse moors, now desolate, whaup-haunted muir- 

 land and peat mosses, were flourishing woods of magnificent 

 ^ Niven, Bot. Section British Association, 1901. 

 53 



