68 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



have been lately taken more than a million of trees,* the 

 succession of different kinds of indigenous trees is as 

 distinctly marked as the successive periods of geological 

 strata. Lowermost are found the Scotch fir ; next, the oak ; 

 nearest to the surface, the beech. Each of these must 

 have had its reign, and apparently an exclusive reign, and 

 each in its turn may claim to have been indigenous. But 

 in singling out the oak as especially the ancient British 

 forest tree, there is also this to be said in justification : 

 perhaps more than any other tree it will inhabit all soils; 

 clay and gravel, sand or peat, chalk or limestone. Of 

 course it has its preference, but any one may notice how 

 the acorns shed from the trees standing in the rich strong 

 soil of an old wood, find their way on to the adjacent heath 

 or moor, and flourish with the invariable vigour of what 

 is naturally planted.t 



"" See " Glances at the Forests of N. Europe," Journal of Forestry, vol. II. p. 247. 



t Of the kinds of trees composing the ancient woods and forests of England, Marsh 

 writes, in his work entitled "The Earth as Modified hy Human Action": — 

 " England was anciently remarkable for its forests, but Caesar says it wanted the 

 fagus and the abies. There can be no doubt thsAfagits means the beech, which, as the 

 remains in the Danish peat-mosses show, is a tree of late intoduction into Denmark, 

 where it succeeded the fir, a tree not now native to that country. The succession of 

 forest crops seems to have been the same in England ; for Harrison, p. 359, speaks of 

 the ' great store of firre ' found lying * at their whole lengths ' in the ' fens and marises' 

 of Lancashire and other counties, where not even bushes grew in his time We cannot 

 be sure what species of evergreen Csesar intended by abies. Tlie popular designations 

 of spike-leaved trees are always more vague and uncertain in their application than 

 those of broad-leaved trees. Pinus, pine, has been very loosely employed even in 

 botanical nomenclature, and Kiefer, Fichte, and Tanne are often confounded in 

 German. — Rossmassler, Der Wald^ pp. 256, 289, 324. A similar confusion in the names 

 of tliis family of trees exists in India. Dr Cleghorn, Inspector-General of the Indian 

 Forests, informs us in his offlcial Circular No. 2, that the name of deodar is applied in 

 some provinces to a cypress, in some to a cedar, and In others to a juniper. If it were 

 certain that the abies of C»sar was the fir formerly and still found in peat-mosses, and 

 that he was right in denying the existence of the beech in England in his time, the 

 observation would be very important, because it would fix a date a.t which the fir had 

 become extinct, and the beech had not yet appeared in the island. 



" The English oak, though sti'ong and durable, was not considered generally suitable 

 for finer work in the sixteenth century. There were, however, exceptions. ' Of all in 

 Essex,' observes Harrison, Hqlinshed, i., p. 357, * that growing in Bardfield parke is the 

 finest for ioiners craft ; for oftentimes haue I scene of their workes made of that oke 

 so fine and faire, as most of the wainescot that is brought hither out of Danske 

 [Danzig] ; for our wainescot is not made in England. Yet diuerse haue assaied to deale 

 with our okes to that end, but not with so good successe as they haue hoped, bicause 

 the ab or iuice will not so soone be remoued and cleane drawne out which some attri- 

 bute to want of time in the salt water.' 



" This passage is also of interest as showing that soaking in salt water, as a mode of 

 seasoning, was practised in Harrison's time. 



" But the importation of wainscot, or boards fQr ceiling, panelling, and otherwise 

 finishing rooms, which was generally of oak, commenced at least three centuries before 



