FORESTRY IN KENT AND SUSSEX. 



121 



trees at present growing in typical Kentish soil will give a fair 

 idea of the suitability of the land for the production of timber. 

 When it is stated that the land on which they are growing only 

 realises about ten shillings per acre, and that the current price 

 of oak ranges from two shillings to half-a-crown per cubic foot, 

 it will not seem a rash assertion to say that here, if anywhere, 

 forestry ought to pay. The measurements given below are exact 

 over-bark measurements, and were taken, in every case, at about 

 the height of 5 feet from the ground. Any estimate of the 

 probable ages of the trees could only be conjectural. 



9 



10 

 



1 





 



Here we have a group of fifteen oaks, not specially selected, 

 growing within a radius of a hundred yards, and giving an 

 average girth of over 12 feet. It seems preposterous that land 

 which can produce such timber should be mainly utilised for the 

 raising of an unprofitable by-product. 



Thanks to the apathetic attitude of successive British Govern- 

 ments with regard to forestry, we are, as a nation, largely 

 dependent upon foreign countries for a supply of timber. The 

 chief recommendations of this foreign timber are that it is of 

 clean growth, free from knots, and more easily worked than 

 home-grown timber. There is, however, one class of British 

 timber with which the foreign substitute is not, in point of 

 quality, comparable, and that is oak. This fact is not so well 

 known as it ought to be. Lancashire is the dumping-ground of 

 a considerable quantity of foreign oak, and there are few people 

 better qualified than the Lancashire farmer to pronounce upon 

 its wearing qualities, and to assess its value as compared with 

 English oak. Given his choice of two farm waggons, both of 

 equal price, and precisely similar in every way, with the ex- 

 ception that one was built with English and the other with 

 foreign oak, he would unhesitatingly choose the former. If the 

 waggons were put up for auction, he would bid pounds more for 

 the one built with English timber than he would for the other. 

 He knows by experience the superior value of English oak, and 



