253 



TIMBER AND TIMBER-TRADE. 



TIMBER AND TIMBER-TREES. 



251 



alone fit for this purpose; cheap wood would injure the cutting 

 apparatus, and thus would not be cheap in the end. A plank 12 feet 

 long, 11 inches wide, and 3 inches thick, will cut 'up into 200,000 

 lucifer-match splint* of ordinary size ; and some firms thus cut up 

 twenty of such planks in a day. 



In an article by Mr. Charles Knight, in the ' Companion to the 

 Almanac,' for 1861, an account is given of the curious wooden-ware 

 manufactures of Buckinghamshire and one or two neighbouring 

 counties. The beech, elm, and ash trees of those districts are brought 

 into immediate and local manufacturing use. At Chesham are made 

 bread-trenchers, butter-prints, cricket-bats and stumps, money bowls, 

 washing bowls, malt shovels, 'sand shovels, butcher's trays, trundling- 

 hoops, toy garden-rollers and garden-rakes, toy wheelbarrows, hat 

 blocks, straw bonnet blocks, and wig blocks. The taste exhibited 

 in these articles is of a humble kind, and very little machinery 

 is employed in the production. Chair making is the chief trade in 

 and around High Wycombe. The many thousand cheap but strong 

 chairs made within the last few years for use in the Crystal Palace, 

 St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and other public places came from 

 the district in question. One contract of 6000 chairs for barracks, and 

 another of 8000 for the Crystal Palace, are mentioned. " Wycombe," 

 says Mr. Knight, "boasts of making a chair a minute all the year 

 round : chairs which would not be unsightly in the handsomest 

 sitting room, and which can be sold at five shillings each. More 

 costly chairs are here produced, as well as the commonest rush- 

 bottom chair of the old cottage pattern. But the light caned chair, 

 stained to imitate rosewood, or of the bright natural colour of the 

 beech, and highly polished, finds a demand throughout the kingdom 

 it demand which might appear fabulous to those who have not reflected 

 upon the extent to which a thriving industrious people create a 

 national wealth which gives an impulse to every occupation, and fills 

 every dwelling with comforts and elegancies of which our forefathers 

 never dreamt. The wondrous cheapness of the Wycombe chair is 

 produced by the division of labour in every manufactory ; and by the 

 competition amongst the manufacturers, in a trade where a small 

 capital and careful organisation will soon reward the humblest enter- 

 " Some of the operations are conducted in factories of consider- 

 able size ; while others are undertaken by workmen in all the villages 

 round. 



>>rr Trade. Several centuries ago the woods and forests of 

 England were sufficient to supply all the timber required for the 

 building of ships and houses, as well as for fuel. In the 16th century 

 we begin to hear complaints of their exhaustion. An act was passed 

 in 1531 requiring coopers to sell their barrels at fixed prices, and 

 unlfi in^ that tin; exporters of beer should import clapboards sufficient 

 tu replace the barrels Bent out of the country. Another act, passed in 

 1.111, was designed to enforce certain restrictions respecting the felling 

 of trees, and to prevent the conversion of woodlands into pasture or 

 In 1558 an act was passed, entitled ' An Act that timber shall 

 nut be felled to make coles for the making of iron,' which prohibited 

 the use of timber one foot square in iron-works within fourteen miles 

 ea, or within the same distance of eight of the principal rivers 

 .f Kn^land, or any navigable stream having an outlet on the coast: 

 but three southern counties, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey were exempt 

 from the operations of the act. The design seems to have been to 

 encourage the trade in timber fit for building, and to benefit those 

 parts of the country which did not possess a sufficient supply. In 

 1592 the subject again attracted notice, and an act was passed, which, 

 amongst other things, prohibited aliens exporting fish, unless they 

 imported clapboards; and altogether prohibited the exportation of 

 wine-casks. In the following century the scale of prices turned in 

 favour of pit-coal. 



liming the decline in the internal supply of timber, it gradually 

 became an article of extensive demand from other countries. In 1830, 

 according to a statement of Mr. Huskisson, the fir timber used in 

 England for building purposes was nearly all brought from abroad. 

 The proportion of timber of native production used for similar objects 

 Is not known or even guessed at. The north of Europe, especially the 

 countries on the Baltic, and our colonies in British North America, arc 

 the great sources of supply. The timber of the north of Europe i 

 generally of excellent quality, and much superior to that from the colo- 

 nies. The inferior colonial timber was for many years forced into use 

 by enormous differential duties, which amounted to a bonus of 1000 per 

 :ri some cases : that is, the one duty was ten times as much as 

 tin; other. In 1787 the duty on foreign timber was only Gs. 8<f. the 

 f fifty cubic feet, but it was raised at different times, until, in 

 1804, it amounted to 25*. In 1810 the duty was raised to 54s. 8rf. ; 

 and from 1814 to 1820 it wag 64*. lid. and 65. the load. The trade 

 in colonial timber had scarcely any existence before 1803, although 

 until 1798 it had been admitted free of duty; and the duty imposed 

 in that year was only 3 per cent, ad valorem, which was changed in 

 1803 to a specific duty of 2. the load. In consequence of the war 

 there was a great rise in the price of European timber, Memcl fir 

 advancing from 78*. to 320*. the load. In order therefore to encourage 

 the supply from our own colonies, North American timber was again, 

 in 1806, admitted duty free; and from that time it was more largely 

 used than Baltic timber. The return to a sounder principle of taxa- 

 tion wai very slow. In 1821 the duty on European timber was re- 



duced from 65s. to 55s. the load, and a duty of 10s. was imposed on 

 colonial timber, leaving a preferential duty of 45s. still in operation. 

 In the tariff of 1842 the duty on colonial timber was reduced to a 

 merely nominal sum, namely, Is. the load, and to 2s. on deals, and 6d. 

 on lathwood ; while that on foreign timber was to be gradually reduced 

 to 30s. and 35s. on different kinds. The mode of charging the duty 

 waa at the same time improved and rendered less complex than before. 

 The difference of duty was from 24s. to 30s. in favour of colonial 

 timber. This difference was reduced in 1847 to 14s. In 1851 the 

 differential duties ceased altogether ; the duty was established at 7s. 6V/. 

 to 10s. per load, without respect to country. In 1860 it was reduced 

 to 1. and 2s. per load, or Is. and 2s. per ton, according to the mode of 

 measurement. It may here be remarked that timber is sold by the 

 load, the cubic foot, the square foot, the foot run, the ton, the lb., or the 

 number of pieces ; but the greater portion is by the load. A load of 

 unhewn timber is 40 cubic feet ; of squared timber, 50 cubic feet ; of 

 planks, 150 to 600 square feet, for thicknesses varying from 1 to 4 

 inches. Of a veiy usual kind of plank, 12 feet long, 11 inches wide, 

 and 3 inches thick, 18 make one load. 



The imports of timber, in the fifteen years from 1844 to 1858 in- 

 clusive, ranged from 1,600,000 loads to 2,500,000 loada annually. In 

 1860 the quantities and classification were as follow : 



Loada. 



Foreign, unhewn timber 

 hewn timber 



Colonial, unhewn timber 

 hewn timber 



Total 



. 692,788 



. 768,791 



. 680,349 



. 760,356 



.2,802,284 



TIMBER AND TIMBER-TREES. Timber-trees are those the 

 wood of which is used for building or repairing houses. Oak, ash, and 

 elm, of the age of twenty years and upwards, are the trees most 

 generally included under that denomination ; but there are many 

 other kinds of trees, such as beech, cherry, aspen, willow, thorn, holly, 

 horsechesnut, lime, yew, walnut, &c., which are, by the custom of 

 certain parts of England, considered as timber-trees, as being those 

 used in building. (Cruise, ' Dig.', t. 3, c. 2, ss. 6, 7.) Most of the 

 cases upon the question as to what trees are to be considered timber, 

 have arisen in reference to the stat. 46 Edw. III., c. 3, whereby it was 

 enacted that great or grosse wood of the age of twenty, thirty, or forty 

 years, or upwards, should not be titbeable, but that tylra ciedua, or 

 underwood, should be titheable. (2 ' Inst.', 642, 643 ; 3 ' Rep.', 12.) 



The timber-trees growing upon land belong to the owner of the 

 inheritance. A tenant for life has only a qualified interest in them, 

 in so far as they afford him shade and shelter, and a right to take the 

 mast and fruit. If the tenant for life fells timber-trees on the land to 

 any amount greater than he is entitled to as estovers, that is to say, 

 the allowance of wood necessary for the reparation of houses and 

 fences, he becomes liable to an action of waste [WASTE] ; and the 

 trees, which by these or any other means, accidental or otherwise, have 

 become severed from the land, may be seized by the owner of the 

 inheritance, or an action may be brought by him for them. If, how- 

 ever, the estate of the tenant for life be without impeachment of waste, 

 he has the full right to fell timber, and also the property in all timber- 

 trees felled and blown down during his life. 



In leases for lives, when timber is included, if the lessor fells the 

 trees, the lessee may maintain an action of trespass against him, 

 because the lessee, though he may not cut down the trees without 

 being subject to an action of waste, has an interest in them for shade 

 and shelter, and a right to take the mast and fruit, and may also lop 

 them if they be not thereby injured. But where the trees are excepted 

 in a lease, which is usually done, the lessee has no interest whatever in 

 them, and the lessor may bring an action of trespass against him if he 

 fella or damages them. The lessor has also a power, incident to the 

 exception, of entering on the land in order to fell and take away the 

 trees ; though this power, for the sake of avoiding questions, is often 

 expressly reserved. 



The timber growing on copyhold estates is, by the general custom 

 of most manors, the property of the lord, who may cut it down, 

 provided he leaves a sufficient quantity for the repairs of the copyhold, 

 which the copyholder is entitled to of common right. But the general 

 right of the copyholder to have timber for the reparation of houses 

 and for ploughbote and hedgebote may be restrained by custom, 

 namely, that he shall not take it without assignment from the lord or 

 his bailiff. A copyholder in fee may, by the particular custom of the 

 manor, have a right to cut timber-trees growing on his copyhold, 

 and sell them at his pleasure ; and the same right may belong by 

 custom to a copyholder for life, who is entitled to nominate his 

 successor, as being a quasi copyholder in fee ; but a custom that a 

 copyholder for life may cut down timber is unreasonable and void, as 

 being a destruction of the inheritance, and contrary to the nature of a 

 life estate. 



Ecclesiastical persons being considered in most respects as tenants 

 for life of the lands held by them jure cccletite, are not permitted to 

 cut down timber except for repairs. The Court of Chancery will 

 always interfere to prevent the owner of a particular estate joining 

 with the person entitled to the inheritance for the time being to cut 

 down the timber on the estate. 



