FORESTRY 



timber, underwood and thinnings in 1888-9, ^^'^ £,''■19 for shooting 

 over the plantations at Esher/ All the rest form part of the estates of 

 private landow^ners, but no details have ever been collected or published 

 regarding either the area of woods on the various estates, or the indi- 

 vidual or total area of woods of oak, beech, larch, pine, etc. The 

 Parliamentary Return of Owners of Land in England and Wales, 1873, 

 which has been called ' the New Domesday Book,' expressly states that 

 in its compilation ' no account is taken of those waste lands the area of 

 which could not be ascertained, of woods other than saleable under- 

 woods,' etc. ; and no other statistics, official or otherwise, have since 

 been collected. 



The greatest acreage of woods is naturally to be found on the 

 largest estates, among which are those of the Earl of Lovelace (Horsley), 

 the Earl of Onslow (Clandon Park), the Duke of Norfolk (Redlands, 

 etc.), Viscount Midleton (Peper Harow), Mrs. Hope (Brockham 

 Hurst) and the Duke of Northumberland (Albury Park), though in 

 certain respects the most celebrated of all of them, from the arboricul- 

 tural associations connected with it, is Wotton, the seat of the Evelyn 

 family. Such specific details as could be obtained will be found on 



PP- 576-578- 



As in every other county in central and southern England, the 

 woodlands serve the primary purposes of ornament and of game coverts, 

 and the production of timber and underwood is consequently on most 

 estates subordinated to game-rearing and aesthetic considerations. They 

 are therefore not managed on purely business principles, and the mone- 

 tary return they yield under arboricultural treatment of this sort is far 

 from being so good as it otherwise ought to be. The prevalence of 

 rabbits, too, at the present day the most destructive of all kinds of game 

 in England, causes a great deal of damage in coppices, rendering it 

 impossible to raise plantations unless they are fenced in with rabbit- 

 proof wire netting, and this forms an item of considerable amount, 

 while it is in itself absolutely unremunerative expenditure. 



The woods on most estates are worked in a more or less haphazard 

 manner, without any regular scheme of management being adopted. 

 About the beginning of the last century, when the scarcity of oak 

 timber for ship-building and of small wood for miscellaneous purposes 

 caused much attention to be devoted to the woodlands and to planting 

 generally, things were somewhat different. At that time it was said^ 

 that — 



' the great objects in the weald are the timber and the underwood. From the many 

 purposes to which the latter is applied, and the consequent high price which it bears, 

 the proprietors in the Weald are not anxious to have their timber open and unen- 

 cumbered as they are in other districts. Hence their timber, enclosed on all sides by 

 the underwood, grows up tall and straight, unfit for any purpose in which Knees or 

 crooked timber is wanted.' 



> Appendix to Report from Select Committee on Woods and Forests, etc. (July 26, 1889), p. 234. 

 ^ Stevenson's Jgriculture of Surrey (18 13), p. 426. 



571 



