192 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



clamour and offence.^ At another time a monopoly was suggested 

 as a means of regulating the industry, and as an alternative a 

 system of licences.- The prohibition of export became merely 

 an instrument of revenue, the exports paying besides customs 

 duty a special licence duty : the revenue, in fact, grew too 

 valuable to sacrifice.^ Proposals to limit exports were put 

 forward in 1636, the figures suggested being 120,000 pipe-staves, 

 40,000 hogshead-staves, 30,000 barrel-staves, and 20,000 butt- 

 headings a year : * the actual exports of two of these items in the 

 four and a half years from Michaelmas 1635 ^^ Lady Day 1640 

 were 3,759,450 hogshead-staves and 2,153,650 pipe-staves.^ 

 The suggested figures may be assumed to be reasonable, and 

 we have some measure of the rate at which production was 

 encroaching upon the resources of the woodlands. 



No effective step to protect the woodlands seems to have 

 been taken, although an Act was proposed for regulating the 

 felling of timber, '' enquiries were made as to the waste of timber 

 and how it might be preserved, " and from time to time felling 

 in special cases or circumstances was prohibited. ^ As early as 

 1613 the Lord Deputy was counselled to plant up the felled 

 woods, and the evil state of England in this particular was held 

 out as a bad example to be avoided : '-• sixty years later planting 

 for fuel and timber (this time in hedgerows) was still a project. ^"^ 

 An Act for planting and preserving timber trees and woods was 

 actually passed in 1698, but it was very limited in scope and 

 proved ineffective. ^^ 



Ireland suffered from the disadvantages of the Colonial 

 System : she did not have the good fortune to be removed from 

 England by the breadth of the Atlantic. While the exploitation 

 of Ireland proceeded, plans for the exploitation of New England 

 were in train. Already in 1632 it was looked upon as a 



^ liz'd., 1611-4, pp. 64, 65 ; 1625-32, p. 66. 

 ''■Ibid., 1615-25, p. 144: Coke MSS., i. 119(1622). 

 ■' Cal. State Papers {Ireland), 1625-32, p. 66. 

 ^ Ibid., 1633-43, p. 125. 

 •' Ibid., p. 312. 

 ^ Ibid., 161 1- 14, p. 192. 

 '^ Ibid., 1615-25, p. 347. 



^ Tudor and Stuart Proclamations (Ir.), Nos. 197, 468, 624. 

 ^ Cal. State Papers {Ireland), 1611-4, p. 369. 



^^ Petty, Political Anatomy of Ireland (1672), Report from the Council of 

 Trade (1676), Economic Writings, pp. 147, 217-8. 

 " Newenham, op. cit., 154-5. 



