l84 FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 



lower slopes of northern Maine giant pines were often mixed in 

 with the spruce. But a more common companion of the spruce 

 was the fir, which probably formed a smaller percentage of the 

 mixture in the virgin forests than it now does owing to its re- 

 markable reproduction. For the same reason the hardwood 

 forests of southern New England had a larger percentage of oak 

 and hickory than at present, for with every succeeding cutting 

 the chestnut, owing to its unequaled sprouting capacity, has 

 gained on its competitors. 



The forests of England had ceased to be important timber 

 producers centuries before the settlement of America. With her 

 forests handled even in those days chiefly as game preserves of 

 the nobility, England had been obliged to rely largely on Scot- 

 land and Scandinavia for lumber. 



The English Government undoubtedly appreciated her new- 

 found American possessions more for these great forest resources 

 than for their possibilities for colonization. While at this period 

 the West Indies probably occupied a greater place in the estima- 

 tion of that Government than did New England, there was no lack 

 of appreciation of the value to the English navy of our timber. 

 In fact, the navy which made possible England's supremacy of 

 the sea through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and 

 which alone prevented an invasion of England by Napoleon, was 

 largely made of New England timber and rehed even more com- 

 pletely on this country for masts. Many interesting incidents 

 bearing light on the timber supply are mentioned in the famous 

 diary of Samuel Pepys, who, in the days of Charles II, was 

 Secretary of the Navy, as for example, the following: 



"Dec. 2, 1666. I went to Sir W. Batten's and there I hear 

 more ill news still: that all our New England fleete, which went 

 out lately, are put back a third time by foul weather, and dis- 

 persed some to one port and some to another; and their convoys 

 also to Plymouth; and whether any of them be lost or not we do 

 not know. This added to all the rest do lay us flat in our hopes 

 and courages, everybody prophesying destruction to the nation." 



"Dec. 3, 1666. At noon home, more cheerful than I have 

 been a good while, to hear that for certain the Scotch rebels are 



