FORESTRY IN BRITAIN DURING THE LAST FIFTY YEARS. 21 



woodland were converted into arable land, the stiff soil on which 

 the oak thrived best being also that most suitable for corn. And 

 fresh land was seldom planted to replace the woodlands cleared 

 away. Still, the planting of oak on the better woodland soil, 

 and of larch, pine, and fir on inferior land and exposed situations, 

 went on fairly extensively until about 1850, when the whole 

 position was revolutionised by steam communication on land and 

 water, and by the use of iron in shipbuilding, which now enabled 

 foreign timber to be imported at a low price. Other economic 

 changes have also gradually taken place since then, greatly 

 affecting the once very profitable woodland portions of estates ; 

 and as timber, bark, and coppice-wood gradually sank in value 

 as the result of free import trade, the existing woodlands have 

 gradually come to be mainly game preserves and ornaments to 

 large estates. One sign of the times had been shown very clearly 

 by the exemption of our two largest Crown woodlands, the New 

 and the Dean Forests, from the Act to facilitate the Enclosure 

 and Improvement of Covimons^ in 1845. 



The manner in which the great economic changes caused by 

 railway and steamship communications affected the Royal forests 

 can be easily understood by a very brief summary of events. In 

 1848 a House of Commons' Committee considered the questions 

 affecting the Crown forests, but never delivered any complete 

 Report, though an interim Report was issued in 1849, and 

 the draft of a Report was also discussed. A Royal Commission 

 was appointed in 1850, with Lord Portman as chairman, to 

 inquire into the rights and claims over the New Forest and 

 Waltham Forest (Essex), which resulted in what is generally 

 known as The Deer Removal Act oi 185 1. It did not affect the 

 Forest of Dean, but it empowered the enclosure of up to 10,000 

 acres in the New Forest, instead of the right to keep deer (and 

 in addition to 6000 acres which were enclosable under older 

 Acts of 1698 and 1808), such enclosures to belong to the Crown, 

 free of all common and other rights. When these enclosures had 

 outgrown danger from cattle, they were to be opened to grazing, 

 and new enclosures made ; and a register was to be kept defining 

 all rights of common and the owners of the same. 



In 1852 the status of the Commissioners of Woods and 

 Forests was determined more definitely than hitherto by An Act 

 to alter and amend certain Acts relating to the Woods, Forests, and 

 Land Revenues of the Crown. In 1861 the various statutes 



