SOME REMARKS ON BRITISH FOREST HISTORY. 187 



recognises quite fairly the objections to his policy — the first of 

 which certainly has been repeated to our day — " that it is against 

 a man's profit to preserue his woods since they grow but after 

 three shillings foure pence an acre yearly, when as the ground 

 being conuerted to pasture, is worth tenne shillings an acre 

 yearly : further it is said by diuers, that in wood countries they 

 have wood enough for them and their heires, as well for building 

 as burning, let them plant wood that neede it : moreouer it 

 cannot (say they) be easily conceiued how wood can be planted, 

 in respect of the difference of soiles, or how plants enow may be 

 gotten to plant the Kingdome withall, or how any such profite 

 may be likely to arise : lastly, that there is Sea-coales enow to 

 supply many wants thereof." These objections he meets to his 

 own satisfaction, if not always quite ingenuously.^ Two years 

 after the publication of The Commons Complaint, Standish 

 came out with Neiv Directions of Experience . . . for the platiting 

 of Timber and Firewood, which is marked by some attempt at 

 a statistical approach to the subject : briefly his plan (which is 

 none too clear) consisted in planting up 1 00,000 acres in four- 

 acre plots (in a second edition, published in 1615, he apparently 

 raises the total area of land to be planted to 250,000 acres) for 

 the purpose of supplying industries : firewood for domestic 

 purposes was to be found from the hedgerows "so as within 

 thirtie yeares it may be more then needefull to haue any Copies 

 or Springwoods at all, but that all Woodland may be conuerted 

 to Tillage or Pasture " : as a temporary measure he thought ten 

 acres might be planted in each parish, which, within thirty years, 

 might be " stocked up," if the hedges were planted with timber.^ 

 Standish looked back upon a golden age, before " three score 

 years last past" —not long, in fact, before Harrison was writing 

 — when affairs were very differently managed and men were 

 provident, and were "naturally given to plant and preserve": 

 " Men then bought wood of twentie yeares growth for twelue 

 pence a loade, where it is now at ten shillings, and for the most 

 part none to be got for money." He seems to recognise that 

 industry must be served, but like Harrison he grudges the 

 conversion of woodland to agricultural purposes and is opposed 

 entirely to the " stocking up " and " stubbing up " of woods. 

 He notes, what was probably true enough in many cases, that 



1 Of. cit., pp. I, 2, 8 ft. 



- New Directions (1613), pp. 2, 3. 



