FORESTRY 



localities, particularly south-east of Chatsworth House, where some of them had 50 feet of 

 clear stem without a bough. In 1808 Mr. Philip Gcll planted 4,000 of these trees on 

 the shale south of Hopton ; they grew much faster in the first year than oaks or larches 

 of the same planting. 



In the same volume is a digression on the increasing scarcity of large oak timber for naval 

 purposes. Mr. Farey considered that one of the difficulties of obtaining timber for this 

 nautical use was the poor price and the jobbery in connexion with the naval timber yards. 

 A hundred of the finest oaks were felled at Kedleston whilst he was making his survey, and 

 were appropriated to the cooper and the cabinet maker instead of to the Royal Navy on national 

 commercial lines. The 550 feet of timber of this falling realized 151 $s. at 5*. 6d. a foot ; 

 and the bark, brushwood, and roots brought up the total to ^203 I "Js. (>d. Among other very 

 fine oaks then standing in Kedleston Park, there was one of such a size and so sound that it 

 was estimated to be worth more by ^50 than the total just cited obtained by the sale of a 

 hundred of its younger fellows. 2 



In the opening years of the nineteenth century a society was formed at Sheffield for the 

 purchasing and planting those parts of the then desolate Derbyshire moors which lay nearest 

 to the Yorkshire town. Rhodes in his Peak Scenery, writing in 1818, speaks in warm terms 

 of this action, expecting that the wilderness of those moorland wastes would soon wear a 

 very different aspect, ' the oak, the ash, the elm, and the pine will each contribute to enrich 

 and ennoble the scene.' 1 



Far the greater part of the woodlands of this county now serve what Mr. Nisbet 

 has described as ' the primary purposes of ornament and of game covers ; and the pro- 

 duction of timber and underwood is consequently on most estates subordinated to game- 

 rearing and aesthetic considerations.' 8 This is certainly true of far the greater part of 

 the woodlands of Derbyshire, particularly in the south of the county. They are not 

 for the most part managed on business principles, so far as timber growing for com- 

 mercial purposes is concerned, and therefore they cannot be discussed from that side of 

 arboriculture. 



General statements as to the condition of Derbyshire usually make mention of wood 

 grown for mining purposes. This is true, but only to a very limited extent in the north 

 and part of the east of the county. Every year the proportion of home grown mine-timber 



1 Farey, ii. 315-324. 



8 Peak Scenery, 1824 ed. p. 17. 'The establishment,' he states, 'consists of a limited number of 

 shares of fifty pounds each, no person being permitted to subscribe for more than ten. The manage- 

 ment is confided to a committee, and they annually plant a stipulated number of acres.' 



3 V. C. H. Surrey, ii. 571. On this subject Mr. A. Payne Galhvay, the Duke of Rutland's agent 

 at Bakewell, kindly writes as follows : ' There is no doubt, whatsoever, that more attention is now 

 being given to that branch of estate management termed forestry than ever before by land-owners and 

 their agents. I am now, for instance, keeping a record of each wood or plantation separately, under 

 the heads of when planted, cost of planting, return from thinning, etc. It is now recognized that 

 the only way to deal with woods is, when they reach maturity, after being thinned through, two or 

 three times, to clean, cut, and replant. It is impossible to raise satisfactory plantations by under- 

 planting. I do not suppose that on this estate any new land has been planted during the last fifty years, 

 excepting odd corners of waste land mostly for game-preserving purposes. When I say none has been 

 planted, I mean comparatively little, perhaps twenty acres in all. During the last seven or eight years, 

 some ten acres a year of old wood, which has reached maturity, has been felled, and the ground 

 replanted with a mixed crop of hard and soft woods, the idea being that the soft woods will be thinned 

 out in from forty to fifty years, and then the hard woods will remain as the permanent crop. There 

 are many people who say that pure woods (trees of one sort) should be planted, not mixed. There 

 are many arguments on both sides. I believe that there is plenty of land at present, not planted, which 

 would pay for planting, but on this estate there is a great area of old wood in which the timber has 

 reached maturity, and it is necessary to deal with this before considering the advisability of planting 

 fresh ground. If the same particulars of forestry had been kept for the last fifty years as are being kept 

 now on most estates, we should know a great deal more about the subject than we do, especially as to 

 whether timber-growing is a profitable investment or not. Of course, the great difficulties to contend 

 with in forestry operations in most places (and they certainly exist in this district) are : damage by 

 ground game, and the amenities of the estate. I mean a landowner naturally thinks twice before cutting 

 down the timber on a hillside seen from everywhere, although the timber growing there may have long 

 since reached maturity, and be going back in value every day, and soon be worthless. It would 

 encourage landowners to plant more if the rates and taxes on woods were less. I think it would not be 

 an unfair thing to let woods benefit by the Agricultural Rates Act.' 



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