26 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
part of England, where vast areas of land will really grow nothing 
else. The clump that was planted as an experiment, to ascertain 
if this tree would thrive in the worst soil and exposure in the 
Forest, is well known to every visitor as Ocknell clump. Ocknell 
enclosure—a very old encoppicement—was replanted in 1776, 
and it is probable that this clump, and those standing in Boldre- 
wood, were planted about this period. The tree itself appears in 
several of the plantations of that date, chiefly in the form of 
belts for protection of the plantation from the wind. In some 
cases these trees have attained good dimensions. Since that 
time it has been freely used as a nurse in all the younger planta- 
tions, and it reproduces itself with such great freedom, that 
tracts of the most barren open forest are gradually becoming 
wooded, sparsely at first, with this tree, in spite of cattle, fires, and 
every other obstacle. The use of Scots fir does not seem to have 
become universal till we come to the plantations made under the 
commissions of 1807 and 1809. These received an impetus by 
the Act 48 George III., which confirmed and enforced that of 
William III., and rectified certain irregularities in its execution. 
Under this power more plantations were made, until by degrees 
the whole 6000 acres authorised by the original Act of William 
ILI. were enclosed; but so slow was the progress, that this was not 
- accomplished until 1846. 
The purpose for which they were made still continued to be 
that of producing oak for the use of the navy, and in many cases 
this tree had to be planted on land where its success was, to say 
the least of it, uncertain. The Scots fir was used as a nurse to 
some extent, and in many cases it has remained as the permanent 
crop, owing to the failure of the oak. In some cases Spanish 
chestnut replaced oak plants that failed early, and some fine 
specimens are the result, but this tree is very apt to grow shaky 
timber in the soil of the Forest. 
During the seventy years in which these plantations slowly 
grew up, but little attention seems to have been paid to the 
New Forest, with the exception of some two or three Acts of 
Parliament passed to check and restrain the rights of common, 
which appear to have been exercised without much regard to law 
or order. 
A very different order of things was about to spring up. The 
first indication of this was the appointment of a committee, 
with Lord Duncan as the chairman, to institute a general inquiry 
