12 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



The more peaceful condition of the country which 

 followed this epoch in our history doubtless encouraged 

 landowners in improving their estates, and the introduction 

 of the French style of landscape gardening stimulated tree 

 planting, and gave planters new ideas regarding their functions 

 on a residential estate. Many of the most famous country 

 seats were laid out about this time, and although Evelyn has 

 been termed the father of English planters, we doubt very 

 much if he did more than record the prevailing practice of 

 arboriculture in his day. A great many of his recommenda- 

 tions savour more of the ideal than the real, and it is 

 difficult to gather from his work the extent or the advance- 

 ment of forest planting in the seventeenth century. Enclosed 



j woods at that period consisted almost entirely of coppice 

 with standards, cultivated for the sake of firewood, rods, 

 poles, etc., which then had to serve for many purposes for 

 which iron, bricks, and converted timber are now used. 

 Fences, drains, agricultural implements, sheds, and various 

 other articles and erections were largely constructed of 

 fagots, rods, and poles produced by this system of woodcraft, 

 while the oak and ash standards furnished materials for more 

 substantial buildings, carts, domestic furniture, etc. These 

 woods were probably small and chiefly clustered round the 

 manor house or village, and the villagers and lower classes 

 still obtained most of their firewood from the remaining 

 commons and waste of the manor, or from hedgerow timber 



; which was pollarded from time to time. 



With the continued enclosure of these commons and the 

 introduction of modern systems of agriculture, estate forestry 

 was gradually developed. So long as waste land formed 

 so large a proportion of the estate, there was little oppor- 

 tunity, supposing the inducement existed, to plant or 

 maintain woods on a large scale. The greater part of the 

 country had a well-wooded appearance, the aesthetic tastes of 

 the landowners were not of a high order, and the extent of 

 waste land provided plenty of sport for the sportsman of that 

 day, without resorting to artificial plantations. The extension 

 of enclosures, however, doubtless paved the way for that 

 process of land improvement which has gone on more or less 

 uninterruptedly for the last two centuries. With larger 



