FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



the east, from Farnham to Buriton and including the Selborne country, 

 the clays, loams and sands of the Gault and Greensands form lands gene- 

 rally of low elevation, interrupted by the steep 'hangers' or escarpments 

 usually facing eastwards, but which run up to over 800 feet at Hindhead. 

 In this latter tract, and particularly in the neighbourhood of the Gault 

 clay, the climate, despite the somewhat low average rainfall of about 3 3 

 to 35 inches, is already somewhat damp as compared with the dry chalk 

 downs. But it is in the Tertiary area forming the south-western part of 

 the county, and comprising within it the whole of the New Forest, that 

 the climate is dampest ; and the principal cause is due to the nature of 

 the soil far more than to mere proximity to the sea-coast. 



The area covered by these Eocene and Oligocene beds extends to 

 about one-third of the county, and consists chiefly of low-lying tracts 

 though reaching an elevation of 400 feet in the northern part of the New 

 Forest. Sheets of flint-gravel prevail in many of the central portions, and 

 the soil is often water-logged and filled with springs, bogs and streams, 

 making the local climate hot, steamy and relaxing. 



The existing woodlands are naturally distributed as under such cir- 

 cumstances one would expect them to be. The predominating tree on 

 the chalk lands is beech and the flora is that characteristic of limy soil, 

 juniper being one of the principal shrubs of spontaneous growth. The 

 low lands and heavy clay soils of the Gault are still partly, as formerly, 

 occupied by oak woods; the fertile tracts of the Lower Chalk have mostly 

 been cleared and are now good, well-watered agricultural land ; while the 

 New Forest district consists of woodlands interrupted by large tracts of 

 open moors, seldom more than two or three feet deep and resting on a 

 hard bed of gravel, or by stretches of heather, bracken, broom and gorse, 

 and by swampy bogs and peat-moors fringed with alder, birch and willow, 

 the trees least sensitive to frost and thriving most easily on sour, wet lands. 

 In many parts of the forest minor trees like holly and hawthorn, shrubs 

 like blackthorn, and weeds like briar, often grow luxuriantly and some- 

 times form dense tangled thickets. 



It is not difficult to form an idea of the primeval woodlands of 

 Hampshire. It is more than probable that the whole county was originally 

 densely wooded, and that these chalk downs, as well as the Cotswolds, the 

 Chilterns and all the hills of similar character forming the backbone of 

 the southern counties of England were mainly covered with beechwoods, 

 of which those still existing in patches varying in size are but the poor, 

 scattered remnants. When the earliest settlers, at first nomadic and 

 afterwards permanent, fixed their abodes near the watercourses they 

 probably subsisted mainly on wild fruits and roots, and then went 

 through the hunter-stage of development before attaining higher evolu- 

 tion. It is not improbable that swine formed their first and for long 

 their only possessions in the way of domestic animals, just as is now the 

 case among the Karens and similar hill -tribes in the vast forests in 

 Burma. The herds of swine could be taken out into the woods to feed 

 on the beech-mast, and by wallowing and breaking up the ground with 



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