148 THE NEW FOREST 



Much of this timber went where it ought to 

 go, viz. to the upkeep of the Royal Navy. 

 Thus, between the years 1761 and 1787 the 

 Forest yielded timber valued at 87,952, of 

 which 54,449 went to the Royal Dockyards; 

 while before that date, in 1707, a warrant was 

 issued for cutting, for the service of the Royal 

 Navy, 300 trees annually for forty years, and 

 further, for felling yearly such trees as should 

 be found most useful for the navy. And in 

 the years 1849 to 1852, when the utilitarian 

 spirit mostly prevailed in the Forest, when a 

 navy purveyor for some three years occupied 

 the Queen's House itself, when also the old 

 wooden walls of England were about to be 

 renewed for the last time, upwards of 150,000 

 of timber went to the dockyards rightly and 

 properly enough, if it was fit for ship-building. 

 For what is a Royal Forest meant, if it is not 

 to supply timber for national service, and if its 

 growth is not cared for and maintained so as to 

 keep up that supply? 



And there was another constant drain on the 

 more valuable oaks in .the constant thieving that 

 went on all over the Forest, by the neglect of 

 the Forest officers to check the malpractices, 

 if, indeed, they did not participate in the 

 profits made, and increase them by the bad 



