AGRICULTURE AND BRITISH FORESTRY 61 



How great an ojDportunity for successful afforestation 

 has been lost within the last two centuries may be gauged 

 from the fact that nearly 10,000,000 acres of common 

 land were enclosed by Acts of Parliament between 1750 

 and 1850, practically resulting in the appropriation, for 

 agricultural purposes, of all land available for first-class 

 timber production on a large scale. Some, no doubt, of 

 this land was planted by the larger landowners or lords of 

 the manors, who received the greater portion of the enclosed 

 lands; but the present area of woodland in England and 

 Wales shows how inadequate this was compared with 

 the needs of the country. The fact that the unenclosed 

 land still in existence consists entirely of the poorest and 

 most elevated portions of the country also proves that the 

 process of enclosure only stopped short at land which was 

 not worth enclosing, and explains why large and undivided 

 areas cannot now be found, except on mountains and 

 heaths of the poorest description, and more or less 

 unsuitable for any form of improvement. In the reigns 

 of George ii. and George iii. a few measures were passed 

 for the enclosure of wastes, expressly for timber-growing 

 purposes, but nothing appears to have come of them, and 

 with the exception of some half-dozen Crown forests 

 which have escaped transference or sale to private 

 individuals. State forestry in Britain can scarcely be said to 

 exist, while facilities for its creation on modern lines have 

 also been lost to a great extent. 



The general result of the wholesale appropriation of 

 fertile and favourably situated land for agricultural pur- 

 poses in Britain has been of the greatest detriment to 

 British forestry, and seriously impedes any rapid progress 

 being made in the work of afforestation. On the Con- 

 tinent, land similarly situated, and of equal fertility to 

 that so extensively enclosed within the last century or 

 two in Britain, has been occupied by forests from early 



