A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



with the Local Government Board, the power of selling and leasing 

 small portions of land for sanitary purposes only, provided that after 

 enquiry by the Local Government Board it is found and certified to the 

 Treasury that the land is immediately required in the interest of the 

 health of the locality and that no suitable land outside the New Forest is 

 available without undue expense. Compensation is also agreed to be 

 paid to the commoners if any rights of common are taken away or 

 prejudicially affected. This Act will no doubt assist to mitigate some of 

 the more pressing sanitary necessities in the neighbourhood, but it leaves 

 untouched the disabilities which the new population suffers under in 

 respect of obtaining land necessary from time to time for religious, 

 educational, and many other wants such as rural populations have need of 

 from time to time. 



At this stage the legislation on the subject of the New Forest and 

 its effects remains at a standstill. That it will remain in that position 

 is practically impossible, and the next steps to be taken for the preser- 

 vation of this grand national possession must be awaited with anxiety. 



After the Deer Removal Act 26,918 worth of timber was clear- 

 felled in 1856 in order to provide revenue for new plantations ; and for 

 two years before and after that the fall of mature timber averaged 10,000 

 a year, the money being expended upon planting immediately afterwards, 

 when great block plantations were made of Scots pine and oak. During 

 the seven years 1884 to 1890 only 2,091 trees were cut in the old woods, 

 a large portion being assigned as fuel, while the value of the timber was 

 i,o84- 1 There is very little of the New Forest really fit to produce fine 

 mature oak timber, and these selected portions (such as Bentley's and 

 Salisbury Trench) have undoubtedly been planted with oak once or 

 twice in 400 or 500 years. 2 As a matter of fact no oak is now supplied 

 to the navy, and during 1880 to 1890 the deputy surveyor 'never cut 

 a tree in the Forest that a Navy purveyor would have looked at for a 

 moment,' nearly all of it in the older plantations being ' shaky wood, and 

 in a state of decay.' 3 



The 92,395 acres of the New Forest include the great manors of 

 Beaulieu (Lord Montagu), of Brockenhurst (Mr. Morant), of Minstead 

 (Mr. Compton), and Burley and some others, while the Crown has only a 

 limited ownership over 62,648 acres now classifiable as the forest lands 

 belonging to the Crown (being 64,737 acres > I GSS 2,089 acres of freehold 

 and copyhold). The finest oak woods are those planted under William 

 III.'s Act, about 1700 and previous thereto. The plantations made from 

 1770 to 1820 are chiefly oak and beech, but mainly oak, some of which 

 is of very good growth, although the New Forest generally cannot be 

 considered an oak-growing district. The plantations made during the 

 fifty years from 1840 to 1890 consist of 9,923 acres, the predominant 



1 Appendix No. 4 to Report of July 30, 1890, p. 80. 



* Mr. Cully, Commissioner of Woods and Forests, in Minutes of Evidence before Select Com- 

 mittee on June 21, 1889 ; Report, p. 23. 



* Hon. G. W. Lascelles, Deputy Surveyor, ibid. p. loo. 



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