THE NEW FORESTRY. 55 



permanent way represent the two kinds of timber for which the 

 demand is by far the greatest, and it is constantly increasing. 



That the oak and fir of these older British woods were 

 produced in dense forests, quite unlike those existing now, 

 and that the trees were tall and straight, is evident from the 

 fragments of our. older woods still left, and other examples. 

 This applies to oak and Scotch fir principally, the first in 

 England and the latter in Scotland. The beams, joists and 

 fittings in many old houses and cottages attest this. These 

 beams are long, straight, and of good girth from end to end. 

 In many cases the logs have not been sawn, but simply 

 squared by the axe in the forest and used in that way. In 

 England bridges over streams were constructed of home-grown 

 oak logs of great length and stoutness. Some years ago the 

 timber of an old bridge of this description, in Norfolk, was 

 still so good that it was advertised for sale and was bought 

 by a Yorkshire timber merchant The logs were from sixty to 

 seventy feet long, and squared only a little less at the small 

 end than they did at the other. The purchaser had to send 

 his own team to Norfolk to have them removed. That 

 accurate and conscientious observer, Gilbert White, in his 

 " Natural History of Selborne," records similar examples, 

 apparently scarce in his time. " On the Blackmore estate," 

 he writes, " there is a small wood that was lately furnished 

 with a set of oak of a peculiar growth and of great value. 

 They were tall and taper, like firs, but, standing near together, 

 had very small heads, only a little brush without any large 

 limbs. Some trees were wanted that were fifty feet long 

 without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at 

 the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this 

 little wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered 

 the description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for 20 

 a piece." 



The remains of many old woods in Yorkshire, and records 

 connected with them, seem to show that that county must 

 have been famous for its oak in times past. We have never 

 seen the Yorkshire oak surpassed for size and quality, and it 

 has struck us several times that the oak trees of Hampshire, 

 Surrey, and other parts south of London, were short and 

 inferior to those produced in Yorkshire of the same age, par- 

 ticularly the plantation oak in the New Forest and neigh- 

 bourhood. In " Hunter's Hallamshire " (Yorkshire) it is 

 stated that a Mr. John Harrison made a " minute survey," 

 in 1637, of the Manor of Sheffield, for the Earl of Arundel, 



