SOME REMARKS ON BRITISH FOREST HISTORY. l8l 



smelted,^ and before the end of the seventeenth century the 

 industry was waning in the Weald where coal was not available, 

 while it was increasing rapidly in other iron-fields, long before 

 coke came into use for smelting.'- To hold up the Weald as an 

 example of the destruction wrought to woodlands by iron-works 

 is probably to some extent mistaken. Yarranton, who, by his 

 own account, and by the evidence of his writings, had a wide 

 experience of contemporary conditions, boldly asserted that the 

 proximity of iron-works indeed tended to ensure the preservation 

 of woods. "Iron-works," he said, "are so far from the destroy- 

 ing of Woods and Timber, that they are the occasion of the 

 increase thereof. For in all parts where Iron-works are, there 

 generally are great quantities of Pit Coals very cheap, and in 

 these places there are great quantities of Copices or Woods which 

 supply the Iron-works : And if the Iron-works were not in being,, 

 these Copices would have been stocked up, and turned into 

 Pasture and Tillage, as is now daily done in Sussex and Surry, 

 where the Iron-works or most of them are laid down. And in 

 Glocester-shire, Worcester-shire, Warwick, Salop and Stafford 

 Shires are vast and infinite quantities of Copices, wherein there 

 are great store of young Timber growing ; and if it were not that 

 there would be Moneys had for these Woods by the Owners from 

 the Iron Masters, all these Copices would be stocked up and 

 turned into Tillage and Pasture, and so there would be neither 

 Woods nor Timber in these places." He goes on : " And as to 

 making Charcoal with Timber in those parts, so much talked of, 

 it was and is most notoriously false ; for Timber in all these parts 

 is worth thirty shillings a Tun, and a Tun and three quarters of 

 Timber will but make one Coard of Wood. So let all rational 

 men consider, whether an Iron Master will cut up Timber to the 

 value of fifty shillings, to make one Coard of Wood, when he 

 pays for his Wood in most of these places but seven shillings a 

 Coard? "^ The argument is worth considering for Yarranton 

 was not singular in this opinion, and even Evelyn was disposed 

 to go some way in admitting its truth.* Yarranton, however, 

 is not consistent, and elsewhere admits that the statute which 



^ It had been so employed at least as early as the thirteenth century : Liber 

 Quotidianus Garderobae, pp. II 9, 151. 



"^Sussex Archaeological Collections, iii. 247; xviii. 15, 16: Yarranton,. 

 England's Improvement, p. 149. 



■'* Ibid., pp. 60-61 ; Second Part, pp. 7 1 -2, 163 ff. 



* Sylva (1664), p. no. 



