Exmoor Reclamation. 
75 
Exmoor boundary fence now stands. Most hardwood trees, 
oak, asb, sycamore, beech; lime, poplar, Spanish- and horse- 
chestnut, alder, and wych-elm may be seen growing fairly well 
at Simon's Bath. Of the pine tribe the spruce-fir grows admir- 
ably well on Exmoor, while neither the larch nor the Scotch fir 
makes much progress. On somewhat similar hills on the Welsh 
side of the Bristol Channel, the Scotch fir and the larch flourish, 
but the spruce will hardly live. Whence this extreme difference ? 
Spruce-fir is an inferior timber, but, when forty years old, it 
w^ill stand well in the open roofs of sheds and farm buildings. 
The rhododendron flourishes magnificently in the Exmoor 
peat. 
It is said that there are to be found on Exmoor the sites of 
several villages destroyed by William Rufus in his work of 
afforesting ; but they are not to be distinguished by the untrained 
eye of the ordinary traveller. There are certainly no traces of 
the Saxon plough on Exmoor, although the adjacent commons, 
now for the most part covered with heather, bear traces of having 
been inclosed and cultivated. The u7ider-coats of the thatch 
of some of the oldest farmhouses, when pulled to pieces within 
living memory, were found to be of rye-straw, a crop which has 
not been grown in Somerset or North Devon in this or the 
previous century. 
It is conjectured that these commons encircling the Royal 
Forest were part of the immense tracts of peasants' lands which 
were cleared on the breaking-up of the feudal system, under the 
reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts ; when the necessity for 
fighting vassals ceased, and a demand arose for beef, mutton, 
skins, and hides, and the cash they would bring ; and flocks and 
herds were found more profitable than villages of armed retainers. 
As long as Exmoor was a Royal Forest, and, with the adjacent 
lands of the same quality, was only used as summer pasture, 
the peat-tracts were never touched except to obtain fuel. Peat 
is formed by the roots of growing plants, which can only be 
destroyed by being made permanently dry, or by being cut off 
at its roots. Below the peat on Exmoor comes, as already 
described, a pan, which holds up the water, and causes the 
growth of the peat from the surface of the wet land. Beneath the 
pan lies the pervious subsoil, which, when accidentally or in- 
tentionally denuded, is converted in a series of years, by the 
action of sun, wind, and rain, into a brown soil, which only 
requires lime to produce fine pasture-grass. 
In 1818 the Government, for some unknown reason, passed 
an Act of Parliament disforesting Exmoor, and offered the royal 
allotment, of more than 10,000 acres, for sale, by public tender. 
There were several coippetitors. The purchaser was a Wor- 
