Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol02B.djvu/169

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Common Oak
305
In New Forest, Aldridge Hill, planted 1813:—
  Number. Contents. Value.
1st acre 75 742 £90
2nd acre 79 559 67
3rd acre 77 641 78
4th acre 72 683 84
In Alice Holt Woods:—
Lodge Enclosure 40 837 100
Goose Green 50 812 97
Berewoods, planted 1816 54 771 93
Berewoods, planted 1816 70 618 74
In Dean Forest:—
Blakeney Hill, South, planted 1814 72 720 87
Nag’s Head Plantation planted 1814 97 425 57
Bromley Hill Plantation plante 1812 67 700 84
High Meadow Woods (no date stated),
1st acre
30 1528 214
High Meadow Woods (no date stated),
2nd acre
50 1480 207
In Richmond Park:—
Upper Pond, planted 1824 60 672 81
Kingston Hill, planted 1826 46 628 75
Isabella, planted 1831 68 450 54
Isabella, planted 1845 110 406 49

In the same volume Mr. Ralph Clutton, in an excellent paper on the self-sown oak woods of Sussex, gives many exact details of the growth of oak without underwood, with measurements and valuations, which should be consulted by all landowners in that part of England.

Under more favourable circumstances, however, oak plantations may yield a good profit, as shown by the following extract from the Norfolk Chronicle, sent me by Sir Hugh Beevor, and printed in Grigor's Eastern Arboretum, p. 360.

"Being enabled from old memoranda of undoubted authority, and from information received several years ago from different persons, who remembered or who assisted in the work, to give you, perhaps, an unusually accurate account of the produce of a piece of land measuring eight acres, planted with acorns in the year 1729, I take the liberty of so doing, and of requesting your insertion of it in your paper whenever you may have the best opportunity. The piece was under the plough at that time, cold and unprofitable, from the practice of underdraining not being then introduced; at Michaelmas 1729 it was sown with wheat, and acorns dibbled in; when reaped, the stubble was left very long, which is supposed to have caused the plants to run up very straight.

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