Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/519

 FORESTRY localities, particularly south-east of Chatsworth House, where some of them had 50 feet of clear stem without a bough. In 1808 Mr. Philip Gcll planted 4,000 of these trees on the shale south of Hopton ; they grew much faster in the first year than oaks or larches of the same planting. In the same volume is a digression on the increasing scarcity of large oak timber for naval purposes. Mr. Farey considered that one of the difficulties of obtaining timber for this nautical use was the poor price and the jobbery in connexion with the naval timber yards. A hundred of the finest oaks were felled at Kedleston whilst he was making his survey, and were appropriated to the cooper and the cabinet maker instead of to the Royal Navy on national commercial lines. The 550 feet of timber of this falling realized 151 $s. at 5*. 6d. a foot ; and the bark, brushwood, and roots brought up the total to ^203 I "Js. (>d. Among other very fine oaks then standing in Kedleston Park, there was one of such a size and so sound that it was estimated to be worth more by ^50 than the total just cited obtained by the sale of a hundred of its younger fellows. 2 In the opening years of the nineteenth century a society was formed at Sheffield for the purchasing and planting those parts of the then desolate Derbyshire moors which lay nearest to the Yorkshire town. Rhodes in his Peak Scenery, writing in 1818, speaks in warm terms of this action, expecting that the wilderness of those moorland wastes would soon wear a very different aspect, ' the oak, the ash, the elm, and the pine will each contribute to enrich and ennoble the scene.' 1 Far the greater part of the woodlands of this county now serve what Mr. Nisbet has described as ' the primary purposes of ornament and of game covers ; and the pro- duction of timber and underwood is consequently on most estates subordinated to game- rearing and aesthetic considerations.' 8 This is certainly true of far the greater part of the woodlands of Derbyshire, particularly in the south of the county. They are not for the most part managed on business principles, so far as timber growing for com- mercial purposes is concerned, and therefore they cannot be discussed from that side of arboriculture. General statements as to the condition of Derbyshire usually make mention of wood grown for mining purposes. This is true, but only to a very limited extent in the north and part of the east of the county. Every year the proportion of home grown mine-timber 1 Farey, ii. 315-324. 8 Peak Scenery, 1824 ed. p. 17. 'The establishment,' he states, 'consists of a limited number of shares of fifty pounds each, no person being permitted to subscribe for more than ten. The manage- ment is confided to a committee, and they annually plant a stipulated number of acres.' 3 V. C. H. Surrey, ii. 571. On this subject Mr. A. Payne Galhvay, the Duke of Rutland's agent at Bakewell, kindly writes as follows : ' There is no doubt, whatsoever, that more attention is now being given to that branch of estate management termed forestry than ever before by land-owners and their agents. I am now, for instance, keeping a record of each wood or plantation separately, under the heads of when planted, cost of planting, return from thinning, etc. It is now recognized that the only way to deal with woods is, when they reach maturity, after being thinned through, two or three times, to clean, cut, and replant. It is impossible to raise satisfactory plantations by under- planting. I do not suppose that on this estate any new land has been planted during the last fifty years, excepting odd corners of waste land mostly for game-preserving purposes. When I say none has been planted, I mean comparatively little, perhaps twenty acres in all. During the last seven or eight years, some ten acres a year of old wood, which has reached maturity, has been felled, and the ground replanted with a mixed crop of hard and soft woods, the idea being that the soft woods will be thinned out in from forty to fifty years, and then the hard woods will remain as the permanent crop. There are many people who say that pure woods (trees of one sort) should be planted, not mixed. There are many arguments on both sides. I believe that there is plenty of land at present, not planted, which would pay for planting, but on this estate there is a great area of old wood in which the timber has reached maturity, and it is necessary to deal with this before considering the advisability of planting fresh ground. If the same particulars of forestry had been kept for the last fifty years as are being kept now on most estates, we should know a great deal more about the subject than we do, especially as to whether timber-growing is a profitable investment or not. Of course, the great difficulties to contend with in forestry operations in most places (and they certainly exist in this district) are : damage by ground game, and the amenities of the estate. I mean a landowner naturally thinks twice before cutting down the timber on a hillside seen from everywhere, although the timber growing there may have long since reached maturity, and be going back in value every day, and soon be worthless. It would encourage landowners to plant more if the rates and taxes on woods were less. I think it would not be an unfair thing to let woods benefit by the Agricultural Rates Act.' 423