WOODS AND FORESTS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

The following table represents the extent, receipts, and expenditure of the Forests under the control of Parliament in the year 1848-9.

Receipts.' New Forest 66,291 £10,349 Parkhurst Forest 1,100 616 Dean Forest 23,373 5,889 High Meadow Woods 3,480 2,441 Alice 11011 Forest 1,800 2,058 Woolmer Forest 5,200 697 Here Forest 1,462 1,204 Whittlewood Forest 4,500 674 Balmy Forest 1,280 262 Delamere Forest 4,777 1,906 Whychwood Forest 3,741 323 Halnault Forest 2,939 839 Lanereost Priory Woods...968 ::2 '

Chopwell Woods 398

Eltham Woods 300 392 New Park, part of the New Forest Total 121,759 29,860 34,682 Deficiency 4,821

• The fractions of a pound are omitted, but are included in the total amount.

The sale of Sherwood Forest was completed in the year 1827, for the sum of 35,4271.; which sum was transferred to the Duke of Portland for the purchase of the advowson of Marylebone—the money, it is stated, having been "invested" in the advowson under the authority of an act of Parliament. (8,426-7.) It might have been a really advantageous investment of the money if it had been expended in the foundation and endowment of schools in the different forests under the man- agement of the Commissioners.

It would not have been an irrelevant inquiry if the Committee had received evidence on the state of Sherwood Forest when it was sold and on its present condition. Such an investigation would have been very instructive, and far more useful than an inquiry, occupying nearly two days, into the management of Lord Cardigan's private estates, for a purely personal end, which utterly failed. The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, (vol. VI. p. 3,) however, affords very important information on the result of the disafforestation of Sherwood. "In 1794," states Mr. Corringhain, in his Prize Essay on the Agriculture of Notting- hamshire, "nearly the whole of this division was a vast tract of waste land, the remains of the ancient forest of Sherwood." "As the forest was cleared of its stately trees, it was left one wide waste so naturally sterile as scarcely to have the power to clothe itself with the scantiest vegetation; even in the present day some districts remain which bear evidence of its former sterility. The fens the gorse, the heath, and the delicate lichen, divide amongst them the soil; but Nature has been forced to yield to art ; and a noble triumph it has been, as well as one of great importance to the community at large. She has been gradually encroached upon and narrowed in her boundaries, until only so much is left as served to show

Expenditure.* £12,653 850 9,949 2,353 1,062 728 1,127 803 665 2,041 628 574

68 323 124 836 726

what she formerly was. Where iii former times only the rabbit browsed', Iaree flocks of sheep are now fed—nutritious pasturage in the summer, and fine cro-ns of turnips in the winter, furnishing to them abundance of food, whilst these cre-pe are succeeded every alternate year II cereal ones of the best quality." "Neither is this extensive district, forming an area of fully one third of the county, by this transformation at all denuded of that natural beauty with which some anguisi minds may have been pleased to invest it, when regretting the change which by them was regarded as merely utilitarian: on the contrary, one can hardly picture to the imagination a more delightful country than the Western half of Notting. hamshire, with its rising forests of larch and oak timber, upon which are bestowed as much care as if they were but shrubberies instead of vast plantations re- sembling forests."

Such has been the result of the private management of Sherwood Forest ; and there can be no doubt, the disafforestation of the New Forest would produce more remarkable results in Hampshire, and at the same time afford a good supply of naval timber from future pnvate estates.

The High Meadow Woods were purchased of Lord Gage in the year 1817, when Mr. Iluskisson was First Commissioner, for the sum of 154,0001. This sum, at three per cent, would yield 4,6201. per annum. How much the woods have annu- ally yielded since they were purchased does not appear. The profit last year was only 881.: the sum of 2,3531. being absorbed in expenses. The woods were pur- chased with the view of supplying timber for the Navy. (2,738.) How much tim- ber has been received in the Navy-yards from the High Meadows since 1817, or within the last thirty-two years, or whether any has been received, has not been stated. The old timber is valued at 117,4501., and the new plantations at 32,8501., which are expected to arrive at maturity in the year AD. 1919. If there should be a war in this particular year, the plantations may supply timber sufficient to build about a ship and a half.

Lanercost Priory Woods, with the exception of sixty-eight acres, are leased to the Earl of Carlisle; and, under lease, they are beyond all comparison the most profitable portion of the public lands.

It is stated that plantations ought to cease to be a source of any expense after they ate of twenty years' growth, (1,498,) making an allowance for the rent. (1,499.) There is only one case given in the evidence before the Committee on the Woods and Forests to test the value of this opinion. An enclosure called "Sallow Vallettes," (2,450,) in Dean Forest, at the end of twenty years, produced Si. 3s. an acre; seven years afterwards, 51. 8s. 3d. an acre; and at the end of another seven years, 41. 7s. 9e1. per acre- or 121. 19s. per acre after thirty-four years' growth. The cost of the plantation was 81. per acre, leaving 41. 19s. per acre profit ; which would be a very small contribution towards rent and the ex- penses of management and labour per acre during the thirty-four years. This in- stance admirably illustrates the worth of mere valuations. Try any estimates relating to the growth of timber by trustworthy evidence, and they utterly fail,

so far as they are applied to the public lands. F.