132 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



manie places, especialle in Barkeshire, Oxford- 

 shire, and Buckinghamshire, where they are 

 greatlie cherished, and converted to sundrie uses 

 by such as dwell about them.' 



Since the time of Gilpin and Cobbett the 

 economic importance of the beech has increased 

 very considerably, and the prices commanded by 

 it at present, running up to is. 6d. per cubic 

 foot, in Buckinghamshire and all around that 

 district, for chair-making and various other pur- 

 poses, make it deserving of attention and of 

 improved methods of treatment in all woods 

 grown for profit on the chalky or limy soils 

 abounding from there westwards, following the 

 Hampshire Downs and the Chiltern and Cotswold 

 Hills, into Gloucestershire. This particular local 

 industry goes back a long time, for Evelyn men- 

 tions it among the uses of the wood, though he, 

 too, considers beech ' neither so apt for Timber , 

 nor Fuel? The concluding portion of his, also 

 very short, discourse on the beech illustrates one 

 of the habits of Continental life of old so gra- 

 phically and suggestively, as to be worth quoting : 

 ' But there is yet another benefit which this Tree 

 presents us; that its very leaves which make a 



