WAR'S DESTRUCTION OF BRITISH FORESTS 



1033 



eral purposes, and owing to 

 the demand for small wood 

 and for oak bark for tanning 

 purposes coppice woods were 

 highly remunerative. It would 

 appear that a considerable re- 

 vival of interest in forestry, 

 probably more from an aes- 

 thetic than a practical stand- 

 point, took place towards the 

 end of the 18th century and 

 continued until the middle of 

 the 19th century. 



Towards the end of the 

 1 8th century the growing 

 shortage of Navy timber led 

 for a time to an active plant- 

 ing programme by the Crown. 

 It was then determined to 

 plant with oak an area of 

 about 100,000 acres, sufficient 

 to meet the estimated require- 

 ments of the Navy. The work 

 was entrusted to the Com- 

 missioners of Woods and 

 Forests, who were to find 

 land for the purpose chiefly in 



COL. JOHN SUTHERLAND, B. F. C. 



British member of the Comite Interallie des Bois de Guerre, 

 stationed at Paris to represent the British Forestry Corps. 



the ancient Royal Forests. In 

 1823 the Commissioners were 

 able to report that nearly 52,- 

 000 acres were under timber, 

 but although some planting 

 and replanting went on stead- 

 ily, the total area had not in- 

 creased by 1848. A revival of 

 planting took place in the 

 New Forest for a few years 

 after the Deer Removal Act 

 of 1851, but thereafter, as in- 

 terest in wooden ships declin- 

 ed, interest in the Crown 

 woods declined also, and 

 when forestry again began to 

 receive public attention, about 

 1880, the importance of Navy 

 timber had disappeared com- 

 pletely. In its place, ques- 

 tions bearing on the more 

 profitable management of the 

 Crown woods, the utiliza- 

 tion of waste land and the 

 production of coniferous tim- 

 ber became prominent. The 

 operations of the earlier 



British Official Photograph 



BRITISH FORESTRY CAMP IN FRANCE 



This camp and mill combined is typical of British forestry operations on the western front in France while the character of the French forests leased 



and cut by the troops is indicated by the forest on the ridge. 



