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CORYLACEJiJ. 



in the reign of his successor, to enact a law enjoining the 

 replantation of forest-trees, and in the 13th of Elizabeth 

 further enactments were required for the preservation of 

 the royal woods. These suffered again most severely 

 during the civil wars, and so great was the destruction 

 of the Oak, during these unsettled times, that serious 

 apprehensions of a failure of timber for the support of 

 the navy, began to be entertained in the succeeding reigns ; 

 and in that of William the Third a statute was passed, 

 empowering commissioners to enclose at once two thou- 

 sand acres of the New Forest, and to add annually two 

 hundred more for the space of twenty years ; since then, 

 the national woods have been more strictly looked after, 

 and a breadth of land to the extent, we believe, of fifty 

 thousand acres, is now planted, and as an improved 

 system of management has been adopted, we may hope 

 that it will to a certain extent answer the intentions 

 proposed by the legislature. 



It is not, however, to the royal forests we are to look 

 for the principal supply of our naval timber, but to the 

 encouragement given to planting by the remuneration pri- 

 vate proprietors reap from the cultivation of the Oak ;* 

 and though its value may be lessened, as compared with 

 what it produced during the period of the late war, when 

 Oak bark had risen to an enormous price, in some years 

 having amounted to fourteen, sixteen, and even eighteen 

 pounds per ton, still the present price of Oak timber, 

 for ship-building, and for which the demand seems annually 

 increasing, is sufficiently encouraging, (low as now may be 

 the comparative value of the bark,) to induce any one who 

 plants to introduce a due proportion of this valuable tree. 



There may, perhaps, be some who suppose, from the 



* Ten Oak trees were sold by Sir George Cornwale, Worcestershire, for 1100/. 



