76 The Plant-formation of Clays a/nd Loams 



plains and valleys of the country, were no doubt among 

 the first soils to be disforested and cultivated, so that 

 very little purely natural vegetation remains on any of 

 them. Nowadays they are very largely under permanent 

 pasture. 



Pedunculate oakwood association (Quercetum Bo- 

 huris). There can be little doubt that practically the whole 

 of the clays and loams were at one time covered with 

 oak-forest. All the woods still existing on these soils 

 that have any claim to be considered natural or semi- 

 natural are oakwoods, or clearly derived from oakwoodsS 

 except on wet ground, along streamsides, etc., where they 

 pass into woods of the alder-willow association. Very 

 few, if any, of these oakwoods have been left untouched 

 by human interference, the great majority having been 

 heavily exploited for timber in the past. During the 

 last four centuries oak was in special demand for 

 shipbuilding, and the extensive oak-forests of the Weald, 

 and the south-east generally, suffered severely during this 

 period, which witnessed the rise of the English navy and 

 mercantile marine, because they were within easy reach 

 of the Thames, the Medway, and the southern harbours 

 in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth. The iron contained 

 in the sands of the Wealden area has also been responsible, 

 during the whole of the Middle Ages, for much forest 

 destruction in this region. The iron was smelted and the 

 iron articles were wrought in charcoal furnaces, and the 

 primitive forests were destroyed wholesale for charcoal- 

 making. Many place-names of the Weald, "Cinderhill 

 Wood," "Hammer Wood," "Forge Coppice" and the like, 



' Hornbeam (Carpinus Betulus) is dominant on clay and loamy soils 

 in some parts of south-eastern England, and since this tree oasts a deeper 

 shade than the oak it is possible that the ground flora is affected sufiB- 

 ciently to ailmit of the separation of a hornbeam association. But no 

 hornbeam wood has yet been studied thoroughly enough to admit of this 

 being done at present. 



