479 



ENGLISH COPPICES AND COPSEWOODS. 

 Part II. 



Throughout the eighteenth century, and till well on in the 

 nineteenth, the treatment of and the profits arising from copse- 

 woods remained very much the same as they had been in 

 Evelyn's time, although in many parts of the country the 

 woods had diminished greatly in extent in order to utilise the 

 land for more profitable agricultural cultivation. A good idea 

 of the state of many of the counties as to copses and other 

 woodlands can be obtained from the works published for the 

 old Board of Agriculture in or about 1813. In Vol. II. (page 

 133) of the work dealing with Essex it is said that, on land of 

 good but not of the very best quality, " upon an average of 

 the fellings of the last seven years, the underwood being 

 fifteen years' old growth, the value of the timber, timber-tops, 

 bark and underwood has been at the rate of nearly ^50 an 

 acre," which shows an annual return of over £3 an acre (for 

 land and capital value of growing stock) with a fifteen years 

 rotation. 



Perhaps the best of all this set of books, as far as the 

 copsewoods are concerned, is that written on Surrey by Wm. 

 Stevenson (18 13) ; and the coppices of the Weald of Surrey 

 were then probably about the most valuable and the most 

 carefully managed in the kingdom. They consisted chiefly 

 •of oak, birch, ash, chestnut, sallow, hazel, and alder. The 

 ■oak, the principal standard, was of course barked and used 

 for shipbuilding, etc., while the underwood was used for 

 hop-poles, hoops, charcoal (for gunpowder and other purposes), 

 hurdles and faggots, the market in the vicinity of London 

 being so good that " not the smallest nor the most trifling 

 part of the underwood is useless, or without its value." The 



