20 TRANSACTION'S OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETV. 



III. A brief Suri'ey of the History of Forestry in Britain during- 

 the last Fifty Years. By the Honorary Editor. 



In the President's Address and the preceding article the 

 history of our Society during the last fifty years has been 

 reviewed. But it seems at the same time appropriate to give 

 also a brief sketch of general legal and other prominent 

 changes that have, during this period, taken place as regards 

 Forestry throughout the United Kingdom. The range of view- 

 is therefore wider than that taken with special regard to 

 " Forestry in Scotland in the Reign of Her Most Gracious 

 Majesty Queen Victoria," ^ by the late Mr Malcolm Dunn. 



During all the earlier part of the nineteenth century, the dread 

 of a shortage of oak for shipbuilding, and for the navy in 

 particular, acted as a constant stimulus to the planting of oak, 

 while the improvement of land under larch and other conifers 

 also led to these being growai extensively for timber and profit. 



Despite the fact that planting was found to improve land,, 

 however, there was a decided cessation of acti\-ity in planting 

 after 1830. Maturing plantations then already showed that the 

 very sanguine anticipations formed about them were seldom 

 likely to be realised, and the prospects of profit were usually 

 too uncertain to induce great landowners to embark on permanent 

 investments of this particular kind, and more especially at the 

 time when railways, offering more tempting investments, began 

 to be built extensively. The fact of the matter is that from this 

 time onwards the economic position of the country as regards 

 oak and most other timber was entirely diff"erent from what it 

 previously had been. About a hundred years ago the discovery 

 was made that the oily teak-tree of India possessed valuable 

 properties for shipbuilding, and henceforth the country was 

 saved from its chief anxiety in this respect. And when Britain 

 emerged from her great Continental war with complete command 

 of the sea, she could supply all her other wants with regard to 

 coniferous timber from her North American Colonies and from 

 other countries. After that, the re-plantation of the Royal woods 

 and forests no longer seemed of vital importance ; and some of 

 them were subsequently turned into national parks for recreation. 



The effect of the Continental wars was that large areas of 



1 \'ol. X\'. p. 109. 



