FORESTRY 



of that class of wood as much as possible, 

 while the welfare of the oak, which was studied 

 so carefully in other counties, was more or 

 less lost sight of. These woods consisted 

 chiefly of oak, ash, wych elm, birch, and alder, 

 with hazel undergrowth. The latter was 

 largely used for corf-rods, i.e. rods used in making 

 wicker baskets employed in the mines for carry- 

 ing coal, &c., of which an enormous quantity 

 must have been required before the advent of 

 modern machinery. The method employed in 

 working these woods consisted in cutting them 

 over about every sixteen to eighteen years, but 

 leaving most of the oak standing until it was 

 about sixty years of age, to the number of some 

 fifty trees per acre, when they were valued at 

 about j^iSo. The coppice wood cut was worth 

 about ;^50 per acre, and was used for mining 

 purposes. Birch and alder were used for the pur- 

 poses of the lead mines at seventeen or eighteen 

 years of age, and made up in various sizes, and 

 sold in ' dozens ' of ten to a hundred in number, 

 which represented a load for the back of a gal- 

 loway pony, by means of which all carrying was 

 done in the lead-mining districts.* 



It was about this time that timber imports 

 began to take place in the east coast ports of 

 Stockton, Sunderland, &c., from Norway, 

 Sweden, Germany, and other countries in in- 

 creasing quantities, and although they had not 

 begun to affect the prices of home-grown timber 

 as yet, they doubtless prevented that great in- 

 crease in the value of home-timber which would 

 have resulted from its growing scarcity, although 

 prices went up considerably in spite of them. 

 Between 1789 and 18 18 an increase in the 

 price of oak and ash took place of — oak from 

 i;. bd. to 3^. dd. ; ash from is. ^d. to 2s. 3^., 

 while oak bark rose from ;^5 to £\2 per ton in 

 the wood. It is said that 6 acres of old oak 

 timber were sold about this time by the dean and 

 chapter of Durham for ^6,000. 



In the early part of the nineteenth century a 

 large number of plantations were formed, or had 

 recently been formed, in various parts of the 

 county, and premiums offered by the Society of 

 Arts for the planting of a specified number of 

 trees were secured by several landowners. Bailey 

 states that one of the oldest planters was Sir John 

 Eden of Windlestone Hall, whose opinion was 

 that planters should grow their own trees in 

 preference to buying from nurserymen or em- 

 ploying the latter to plant them. He was also 

 a believer in thick planting, and thinning out 

 in five or six years' time. At various dates, be- 

 tween 1773 and 181 1 a large tract of inclosed 

 common was planted by Mr. Thomas White on 

 his estate of Woodlands, near Lanchester. The 

 value of the fee-simple of this land was not more 

 than 20s. per acre. The cost of planting 



' Bailey, Agriculture ofDur. 



amounted to about £(> an acre, and at that time 

 the thinnings of mixed plantations would pay 

 for the latter at six or seven years of age. At 

 fifteen years the thinnings were used for corf- 

 rods, pit-props, &c., and at twenty-four years 

 they came in for the building of sheds and other 

 small erections, the larch selling at is. bd. per 

 cubic foot, while eight years later the timber of 

 this tree was worth 2s. per cubic foot. At thirty- 

 five years of age the value of the thinnings was 

 supposed to cover the entire cost of planting. 

 For his enterprise Mr. White was awarded two 

 gold and one silver medal by the Society of Arts. 

 In 1 81 3-1 5 the crown commenced plant- 

 ing Chopwell Woods, which then existed as 

 farms, with the exception of about 1 00 acres. 

 The contract for this work was given to 

 Mr. Falla, a nurseryman of Gateshead, whose 

 nurseries extended to 500 acres, and the planting 

 was supervised by William Billington, who 

 recorded, in a book published in 1810, his 

 experiences of raising young plantations of oaks. 

 Billington had previously been employed in the 

 planting of a large area in the Forest of Dean, 

 and was an exponent of the art of pruning. In 

 his account of the planting of Chopwell, he 

 states that the plants used at the commence- 

 ment of the work were one-half larch, one-quarter 

 oak, and the other quarter ash, elm, beech, 

 sycamore, and alder. Later on, he suggested 

 that fewer larches should be planted, as they 

 smothered the oaks, and he also introduced the 

 Spanish chestnut in mixture with oak, which 

 formerly was supposed to be too tender for the 

 district. Amongst other details recorded by 

 Billington are the good effects of cutting back 

 the side branches of young trees, and the high 

 value of small thinnings for corf-rods, pit-props, 

 and other purposes in those days. The ground 

 planted at Chopwell carried an extraordinary 

 crop of whins or gorse, which attained a height 

 of from 8 to 9 ft., with stems over 20 in. in girth. 

 These were sold for conversion into charcoal. It 

 is not quite clear if the ground planted at this 

 time was the same as that previously mentioned 

 as yielding large quantities of oak in the seven- 

 teenth century. If the same, it had evidently 

 been cleared of woodland entirely, as of the eight 

 or nine hundred acres planted at Chopwell the 

 greater part is said to have existed as farm land 

 previous to 1 81 3. 



Other places at which planting was done 

 about this period were Wynyard (where ex- 

 tensive plantations were formed of mixed coni- 

 fers and hard-wood trees), Dryderdale, and Hoppy- 

 land, near Wolsingham (chiefly larch, Scotch 

 pine, and spruce at the former, and these species 

 with beech at the latter) and many plantations 

 in the hill districts following the inclosure of 

 commons. In the colliery districts plantations 

 on the whole have tended to decrease rather than 

 increase, for reasons which are obvious, but else- 



