FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



the law now in force, which permits the enclosure of a total of only 

 1 6,000 acres by the Crown at any given time. At the same time it was 

 laid down that only plantations made since 1700 can be enclosed and 

 replanted. 1 The older woods are being destroyed by gales and the decay 

 of age, while no new growth is springing up to take the place of the old 

 trees ' now dying and falling year by year.' But, ' under existing cir- 

 cumstances no responsibility can attach to the management of the forest 

 for this condition of things, as under the Act of 1877 no effective 

 remedial measures can be taken ' (vide Report of Mr. E. Stafford 

 Howard, C.B., Commissioner of Woods, etc., dated June 29, 1899, 



P- 59)- 



But public opinion has often been instructed in a very different 



manner. Thus it has been said that 



Parkhurst Forest, which reaches from near Newport to the Newtown estuary, is 

 a very good example of what a national forest ought not to be, and of what the New 

 Forest would have become had the old Act empowering its inclosure as a State timber 

 farm not been modified. It is an ancient royal forest ; but instead of remaining in its 

 natural condition of a wild furze heath and woodland it is now a solid mass of timber, 

 mainly oak and chestnut, viewless, and almost impenetrable except by the roads cut 

 through it. If any one desires to know how dull a thousand acres of scientific plan- 

 tation can be he need only spend an hour in Parkhurst Forest. On the other hand 

 it is an economic success.* 



As a matter of fact, however, the oak and pine woods at Parkhurst are in 

 anything but a flourishing condition generally. 



Thus the very Act which was to safeguard the beauty of the old 

 woods as a great national inheritance is preventing their preservation. 

 Under this Act, too, the planting of waste land is prohibited, so that 40,478 

 acres are now left bare and unproductive although large portions of this 

 might easily be made to produce good and profitable crops of pine and 

 fir timber. In the words of the Hon. G. Lascelles, Deputy Surveyor 

 of the New Forest (op. cit. p. 35) : ' Arboriculture may for the present be 

 said to be dead in the chief national forest. It is practically restricted to the 

 thinning of a certain number of plantations of no great age.' The experience 

 of the last twenty-four years shows that there can be no doubt the 

 Act of 1877 requires speedy amendment as regards the preservation of 

 the old woods for aesthetic purposes, and if desired the utilisation of part 

 of the waste lands might easily take place for the production of conifer- 

 ous timber on commercial principles. 



As, however, the questions at issue between the commoners and the 

 Crown are not only of great local but also of considerable national 

 importance, it may be of interest to many to obtain here a more detailed 

 account of the New Forest conflict than is contained in the above short 



1 These are now as follows : From 30-40 years, 5,705 acres ; 40-65 years, 4,278 acres ; 65-90 

 years, 4,080 acres; 90-115 years, 2,230 acres; over 115 years, 1,377 acres: Total, 17,670 acres. 

 Of the remaining 47,067 acres belonging to the Crown, 40,478 acres are open heath and pasture ; but 

 the enclosure and planting of this is absolutely prohibited by the Act of 1877. Thus, while the un- 

 wooded portions are barren waste and moorland, the old woods are gradually also reverting to the con- 

 dition of waste lands through the exercise of rights of common being unrestricted. 



* C. J. Cornish, The New Forest and the Isle of Wight (1895), p. 33, part 2. 



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