A HISTORY OF SURREY 



are principally beech, with a few ash and elms, and scattered yews and 

 hollies, while the underwood is mostly of hazel, cut every seven years 

 for withy and wattle hurdles. Recent plantations, amounting to about 

 loo acres, have chiefly been formed of larch and spruce with a sprinkling 

 of birch. Banstead Park, the only large wood in the parish, was part 

 of the demesne land of the manor. During a survey taken in 1325 the 

 jurors stated that this wood would be worth 25^. were it not for wild 

 beasts {fera), and that the underwood could not be extended because 

 it was destroyed by the aforesaid wild beasts. 



One of the estates having the largest proportion of woodlands in 

 the county is Gatton Park, the seat of J. Colman, Esq., where the 324 

 acres of woods (varying greatly in age) represent 20 per cent, of the land 

 forming the property. Even these are, however, to a large extent of an 

 ornamental character, having been planted with a view to improving 

 the landscape and as game coverts. In the older woods beech is the 

 chief tree, with oak and ash interspersed ; and as these woods are 

 gradually cleared, when mature, they are mainly replanted with beech, 

 oak and ash. The new plantations, aggregating about 25 acres during 

 the last ten years, are a mixture of broad-leaved trees and conifers. 

 The soil is shallow and rests on chalk, and before planting the ground 

 is usually trenched. 



Most of the woodlands on the Hampton Lodge estate near Farn- 

 ham, the property of R. Mowbray Howard, Esq., are of ancient date, 

 and now consist of oaks over 200 years of age. About sixty years ago 

 a good many plantations were formed, chiefly for ornamental purposes, 

 of Scots pine intermixed with oak, chestnut and birch ; while during 

 the last twenty-five years a considerable area has been planted, mostly in 

 consequence of the land having gone out of arable cultivation. Most of 

 these last plantations consist chiefly of a matrix of Scots pine at i \ feet 

 apart (19,360 per acre), throughout which Douglas fir, spruce, larch, 

 and Corsican and Austrian pines are interspersed. Here the intention 

 was to cut a good many of the Scots pine at twelve to sixteen years of age 

 for hop poles, leaving the rest of the crop to grow up (subject to periodic 

 thinnings) as a mixed wood. All the plantations are thriving well. As 

 the main objects of these woodlands are the encouragement of covert for 

 game and the production of ornamental timber, trees past their prime 

 are utilized, while thinnings are made so as only to leave healthy, well- 

 grown trees standing. But little attempt is now made to grow larch as 

 the main part of any crop on this estate, ' because practically every larch 

 planted during the last forty years is suffering from disease ' — the canker 

 due to the fungus Peziza Willkommii. 



During the last fifty years large tracts between the Hampton Lodge 

 estate and Crooksbury Hill have been planted with Scots pine for hop 

 poles ; but this industry is now likely to be discontinued in consequence 

 of many hop gardens having been grubbed up, and because in those still 

 cultivated the use of permanent poles and strained wire has largely been 

 substituted for the old system of two or three hop poles to each plant. 



578 



