£52 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



"... early in the nineteenth century, having obtained the 

 command of the seas, timber imports began to make their 

 presence felt on the home markets up to then supplied from 

 home woods." 



"The old methods of building ships were changed by the use 

 of steel, etc., the building trade were employing cheaper 

 materials, which replaced the fine old English timbers by the 

 long, straight, clean-grown firs and pines of the North European 

 forests." 



The problem cannot be understood unless the misconceptions 

 involved in these passages are removed. It must be emphasised 

 (a) that England (with which country again Mr Stebbing is 

 almost entirely concerned), and in large measure Scotland, were, 

 until comparatively recently, wholly dependent upon outside 

 sources for coniferous timber, and {b) that until the utilisation 

 of coal for smelting and general industrial and domestic 

 purposes, the woods were being gradually denuded to supply 

 fuel. 1 In the mediaeval period, agriculture gradually encroached 

 upon woodlands, but this factor had little influence in the 

 modern period. The difficulties in the way of supplying ships' 

 timber, although a matter of great concern from the early 

 seventeenth century, were largely due to the gross mismanage- 

 ment of the Crown forests, and the general problem would have 

 been much the same whether supplies for shipbuilding had been 

 easily procurable or not. 



It is probable that the importation of coniferous timber had 

 already begun in the twelfth century. 2 In 1623 the Eastland 

 Company stated that abundance of deal boards had been 

 imported in English bottoms, 3 and Raleigh considered that this 

 was one of the important branches of the carrying trade which 

 might be taken out of Dutch hands. 4 In 1721 nearly four 



1 Cf. Cd. 7481, pp. 7, 8. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry, ii. 

 pp. 60, 65, 316 «?., 523. 



2 Pipe Roll 32 Henry II., pp. xxi, 116, 199. 



3 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry, ii. p. 235. As to Scottish 

 timber trade in sixteenth century, see Acts of Pari, of Scot., ii. pp. 373, 499, 

 544 ; iii. p. 82. 



4 "The exceeding groves of wood are in the east kingdomes, but the huge 

 piles of 'wainscot, clapboard, firdeale, masts and timber is in the Low- 

 Countreyes, where none groweth, wherewith they serve themselves, and 

 other parts, and this Kingdome with those commodities ; they have five or 

 six hundred great long ships continually using that trade, and we none in 

 that course." Observations touching Trade and Commerce with the Hollander 

 (1653), p. 26. 



