164 TIMBER SUPPLIES AND THE WAR 



shire owe their preservation to the fact that they were 

 maintained as Royal shooting forests in the olden 

 days. But forestry, in areas of privately owned woods, 

 was understood in England and dates back a long 

 way. In 1543 a Statute of Woods was enacted. 

 Under this it was decreed that all woods should be 

 enclosed for four, six, or seven years after each cutting 

 over of the coppice for different rotations, and that at 

 least twelve standards per acre should be reserved or 

 left on the area to grow into timber of a certain girth 

 or age. These standards were to be oak, if possible, 

 or elm, ash, aspen, or beech, these being the timbers 

 most in demand, whilst the coppice consisted of 

 chestnut, hazel, ash, oak, willow, birch, etc. The 

 object of this and subsequent enactments was to 

 ensure the maintenance of a supply of suitable timber 

 of the requisite size for shipbuilding, both for the 

 Navy and the merchant-vessel classes. The success 

 which attended Evelyn's planting campaign in the 

 reign of Charles II has been commented upon. This 

 practice of forestry, which came to be known as British 

 forestry, remained in force for a long period, and 

 supplied the country with the bulk of its timber 

 requirements in the direction of home-grown materials. 

 It was successful as long as, and only as long as, it had 

 its home market. The introduction of the steel 

 vessel, the abolition of the import duties on Colonial 

 timber in 1846, and for all other foreign timber in 

 1866, sounded the death-knell of British forestry 

 methods as at the time practised. And not only this. 

 These methods unfortunately came to be positively 

 injurious. The requirements of the old shipbuilding 



