GO THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



earlier records are necessarily of a more or less uncertain 

 nature. Hallam supposes tliat the population in the 

 eleventh century, as recorded in Domesday, was about 

 1,000,000 head; while it did not exceed 2,300,000 in 1377, 

 and remained more or less stationary, according to 

 Thorold Rogers, for the three and a half centuries follow- 

 ing. The latter authority estimates the possible culti- 

 vated area in the thirteenth century at 3,000,000 acres. 

 Down to the seventeenth century, therefore, both popula- 

 tion and the area of cultivated land must have been small 

 enough to have allowed ample space for the existence of 

 natural woods and forests, and history generally supports 

 this assumption, although from the complaints of Evelyn 

 and his contemporaries, the stock of timber in them appears 

 to have dwindled very low by that time. Perhaps the point 

 of most importance in this connection, however, is the 

 fact that until the eighteenth century not more than two- 

 thirds of England and Wales were enclosed, and immense 

 areas still remained in the shape of commons and manorial 

 wastes. These commons and wastes may be clearly 

 regarded as the unimproved remains of natural forests, 

 more or less denuded of their timber by continuous 

 grazing, and the exercise of timber and fuel rights. They 

 were, strictly considered, therefore, the analogues of the 

 state and communal forests of the greater part of Europe, 

 the chief difference being that while in the latter the 

 value of the timber was recognised, and its preservation 

 assured by forest laws and ordinances, the importance of 

 the timber crop in Britain was gradually lost sight of as the 

 agricultural value of the land increased, on account of the 

 rise in population and the value of agricultural produce. 

 In this one - sided appreciation of common land the 

 increasing use of coal for fuel had possibly something to 

 do, firewood being no longer needed in manufacturing 

 districts and towns as transit facilities improved. 



