66 THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL [CH. 



task which medieval man set himself in clearing the 

 forest with his imperfect tools and the enormous 

 amount of labour that must have been required. 

 Even with modern appliances — explosives and well- 

 constructed jacks — the task is considerable, and the 

 traveller round the shores of Lake Erie can still find 

 many fields from which the timber has been removed, 

 but the stumps still left, because the labour of 

 removing them is so great that no adequate return 

 could be obtained. 



Clearance was still going on in England even as 

 late as the middle of last century and an interesting 

 account of one is preserved in the Journal of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society for 1863. About ten 

 miles west of Woodstock lies the forest of Wychwood, 

 that formerly occupied considerably more land than 

 it does now. In 1853 an Act was passed permitting 

 disafibrestation, and in October 1856 the work was 

 begun. The account deals only with the portion 

 allotted to the Crown, an area of nearly 3000 acres 

 lying in the triangle between Fulbrook, Field Assarts, 

 and Shorthampton. Of this nearly 2000 acres were 

 "unreclaimed forest land, dense, dark, and gloomy: 

 its silence seldom disturbed, except by the axe of the 

 woodman, tlie gun of the gamekeeper, or the stealthy 

 tread of the deer stealer." 



Ten miles of road were first made, and these, with 

 their boundary walls, cost £6985. Then it was 



