BRITISH FOREST TREES 7 



fresh impetus to clearing, and were the cause of large areas 

 being denuded of timber, some being transformed into arable 

 land and pasturage, but many of them being left to drift into 

 barren moorland. The great Caledonian Forest, formerly 

 occupying the bulk of the central portion of Scotland north 

 of the Forth and Clyde, and formed principally of oak on 

 the lowlands and Scots pine on the uplands (the only 

 species of the pine or the fir tribe indigenous to Britain), 

 covered also extensive tracts of which too often little is 

 now left but the memory and the name. Thus to the south 

 of the Forth and Clyde lay the forests of Ettrick, Lauder- 

 dale, Wedale, Romanach, and Jedwood on the east side, 

 and those of Cadzow and Hamilton on the west. The 

 principal forests to the north of that were Torwood 

 (Stirling), Rannoch and Birnam (Perth), Glentanner, Inver- 

 cauld and Braemar (Aberdeen), Tarnawa and Drummyne 

 (Moray), Abernethy, Rothiemurchus, Glengarry, Glen- 

 moriston, Strathglass, Strathfarrer, and Glenmore 

 (Inverness), Coygach (Ross), Derrymore and Derrymonach 

 (Sutherland). 



Large extents of woodland were felled in Scotland at the 

 time of the wars of Edward I., as they afforded cover to the 

 patriotic bands opposing his army, and John of Ghent, Duke 

 of Lancaster, is said l to have employed 24,000 men in the 

 task of clearing away the timber and destroying the forests 

 in order to punish an incursion. Similar measures were 

 also adopted by Cromwell's army under Monk about the 

 middle of the seventeenth century, and the destruction of the 

 woods on the highland hills was continued into the present 

 century. The pine forests covering many counties, those 

 known as Glenmore, Rothiemurchus, and Rannoch, along 

 with many others, were cleared and destroyed towards the 



1 Gilpin's Forest Scenery, Lauder's edition, 1834, vol. ii., p. 5. 





