1 86 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



planting, the scheme should be revived. James, of course, found 

 England a much better wooded country than Scotland, at least 

 than the Scotland he knew : but he was presumably the more alive 

 to the dangers attending the felling of woods. In 1611 Arthur 

 Standish addressed to him The Commons Complaint', like 

 Harrison, Standish advocated compulsory planting and the 

 replanting of timber felled. The opening sentences of the 

 Complaint, in which the melancholy situation of the country is 

 set forth, are worthy of quotation : they serve to remind us of the 

 uses to which timber was then put, and of the extravagances into 

 which advocates of planting in all ages have been in danger 

 of falling. 



"Wee doe in all humblenesse complaine vnto your Maiesty 

 of the generall destruction and waste of wood, made within this 

 your Kingdome, more within twenty or thirty last yeares, than 

 in any hundred yeares before. Little respect is taken but by 

 your Maiestie, for the posterity and prosperity of your Kingdome; 

 too many destroyers, but few or none at all doth plant or 

 preserue : by reason thereof there is not Tymber left in this 

 Kingdome at this instant onely to repaire the buildings thereof 

 another age, much lesse to build withall : whereby this grievance 

 doth daily increase. The reasons are many : first, the want 

 of fire is expected, without the which mans life cannot bee 

 preserued : secondly, the want of Timber, Brick, Tyle, Lime, 

 Iron, Lead and Glasse for the building of habitations ; Timber 

 for the maintaining of husbandry, for nauigation, for vessels, for 

 bruing and the keeping of drinke, and all other necessaries for 

 housekeeping : barke for the tanning of Leather, bridges for 

 trauell, pales for parkes, poles for Hops, and salt from the 

 Wiches. The want of wood is, and will bee a great decay to 

 tillage, and cannot but be the greatest cause of the dearth of 

 corne, and hindereth greatly the yearely breeding of many 

 cattell, by reason that much straw is yearely burned, that to 

 the breeding of cattell might be imployed : the want of wood in 

 many places of this kingdome, constraineth the soyll of cattell 

 to bee burned, which should bee imployed to the strengthning 

 of land, and so doth the want of hurdles for the folding of sheepe, 

 and the want of wood causeth too many great losses by fire, 

 that commeth by the burning of straw, and so it may be 

 conceived, no wood, no Kingdome." 



His remedy is not to stop felling, but to replenish. He 



