41 



different properties, over which the forest must have extended in 

 those days, would have all come to one agreement in this matter ? 

 Let us bear in mind the contiguity of this forest of firs to the 

 New Forest in Hampshire. The latter was formerly much more 

 extensive than it is at the present day. " By some it is thought 

 probable that WilUam, instead of actually creating the forest, 

 simply added to the extent of a vast tract of woodland which 

 previously existed there."* Wise, too, states that the forest 

 « occupied nearly the entire S.W. angle of Hampshire :"t if so it 

 must have been conterminous with the Bournemouth forest, or 

 mixed up with it. And though the New Forest is more 

 distinguished at the present day for its oaks, beeches, and birches, 

 &c. than for its coniferce, it must surely have had formerly 

 a large growth of firs in addition to the trees above mentioned, 

 or at least in certain parts of the forest. • Lymington 

 Heath is spoken of in the "New Forest Guide Book," 

 as "avast stretch of heather and gorse extending down to the 

 "Beaulieu estate, broken here and there by a few barrows and a 

 "solitary fir tree, presenting a wild, inhospitable and dreary scene." 

 To my thinking, these solitary fir trees here and there are the 

 sole survivors of a much larger number formerly growing in 

 that part of the forest. According to a statement in the Times 

 newspaper, " there are hundreds of thousands of Scotch Firs in the 

 New Forest at the present time."+ Probably a large number of 

 these have been planted, but the circumstance shows how con- 

 genial the soil and other conditions of the forest are to the 

 habits of the fir. 



As for the firs in the original Bournemouth forest, they must 

 have been practically innumerable. It is said that even at the 

 present day, notwithstanding the clearances that have been made, 



* New Forest Hand Book, 2nd Ed., p. 8. See also Leland, Itineraries, 

 2nd Ed., vol. vi., p. 88. 



+ History of the New Forest, p. 20. % Times, September 19, 1885. 



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