ENGLISH FORESTRY IN THE PAST 15 



underwood in agricultural districts. Farm houses and 

 buildings were being erected and improved in all directions, 

 while agricultural implements, tools, hurdles, etc., consumed 

 large quantities of forest produce, which were not affected by 

 foreign timber imports for many years afterwards. Land- 

 owners, therefore, had every inducement to plant land which 

 did not fit in for agricultural purposes, or which was difficult 

 or inconvenient to work. In this way much of the coppice 

 with standards which exist to-day was formed on rough or 

 uneven ground, or heavy low-lying land which could not be 

 cultivated with advantage. It is evident that great expense 

 was incurred in forming these woods, especially on wet and 

 heavy land in the way of draining. In most cases the 

 ground was thrown up in low ridges about a perch wide, and 

 oak, ash, or hazel sown or planted on them. Marshall, in his 

 work on Planting and Rural Ornament, published in 1796, 

 describes the various methods employed when planting these 

 woods. The ground was previously ploughed or cultivated, 

 and the seeds were sown in drills about three to four feet 

 apart, and the intervals used for growing corn, beans, or 

 other agricultural crops. After the first season these drills 

 were carefully gone over and thinned out or filled up as 

 required, and the wood afterwards treated as an ordinary 

 coppice. Ordinary plantations in those days were little 

 known, while the facilities for hill planting did not exist, 

 and the majority of hardwoods required fairly heavy ground. 



During the early part of the nineteenth century planting 

 in England does not seem to have made great strides. This 

 may be partly explained by the natural reaction which would 

 follow the extensive planting operations of the previous fifty 

 years, for nearly all proprietors, with a taste for improve- 

 ment, had improved their estates while the craze was in full 

 swing, and planting for economic purposes was then, as now, 

 not a popular form of amusement. Those who had recently 

 called in and acted upon the advice of the landscape 

 gardener would have little inducement to do much for a 

 few years, but would content themselves by watching the 

 growth and effect produced by their young plantation and 

 clumps. But the chief cause of the decline in planting 

 work about this time must be attributed partly to political 



