174 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



24. Some Remarks on British Forest History. 



By H. G. Richardson. 



{Contimud from Vol. xxxv., p. 166.) 



II.— THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH 

 CENTURIES. 



These centuries lie between that period of slow economic 

 growth, which we call the Middle Ages, and the modern period 

 in which we live whose civilisation is founded upon coal. In 

 the year 1500 wood was used for the purposes for which we now 

 use coal, although coal was used to some extent for smithies 

 and for lime-burning, and those who could not do better warmed 

 themselves by it : wood was used for housebuilding and ship- 

 building, for constructional purposes of all kinds, for implements 

 and tools, for furniture and tableware.^ By the year 1700 

 brick and stone houses were the rule, particularly in towns : 

 their rooms were larger and more numerous and far better 

 furnished with furniture, often made of exotic hardwoods ; there 

 was British-made glass in the windows, and glass and pewter oa 

 the tables, and a good deal of British-made ironwork in and 

 round the houses; on the hearths coal was burnt, although other 

 fuels were used where coal was difficult to get ; British ships^ 

 largely built of imported timber, sailed every sea. Yet it is 

 easy to deepen the contrast out of all measure, to emphasise the 

 accidents. Coal was not yet used for smelting : steam power 

 was unknown : and although agriculture had everywhere 

 encroached upon the woodlands, farming in Scotland was 

 primitive almost beyond belief; in Ireland they still ploughed 

 by the tail and burnt corn in the straw ; and great areas of 

 land in England were unenclosed common-fields. The subjects 

 of King William were sufficiently near the Middle Ages to 

 despise them : but still the distance travelled had not been 

 inconsiderable. 



If we are to understand the history of timber we must realise 



^ E.g. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII., iii. i. 191 (1579): "To William 

 Jonson, turner, Eastcheap, 2 doz. platters, 2od. ; i doz. drinking bowls, 6d. ;; 

 2 two-gallon tankards, 2s. ; 2 gallon tankards, i6d.; 4 pails, I2d.; 2 doz. 

 saucers, 4d.; 4 doz. dishes, I2d. ; 3 pottle tankards, I2d.; 2 ladles, lod. " 

 William Harrison, in his Description of England, notes as one of the greatest 

 changes within living memory that of " treen platters into pewter, and woodea 

 spoons into silver or tin " : Elizabethan England, p. 119. 



