button to main menu  Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, 1787

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page xxxvi:-
  woods
  forests

Several authors, who have mentioned the soil of these counties, have represented it as unfavourable to the growth of timber; which I believe very true with respect to the mosses, and some other places; yet every inhabitant knows, that the glebe in general, if left to itself, that is, if exempted from the plough and the scythe, nor trod by cattle, would soon be covered with trees, and that the country would become one large forest; and this shews that its natural disposition is not to become a naked woald, but a desart of wood. A desart of wood it has indeed been, tho' in many places as poor as that of almost any country, and as ill calculated for the purposes of agriculture; particularly in the mosses that are amongst, or perhaps upon the mountains: these however have their woods; the birch, the wild-ash, the wythe, as it is called, and some others, are disposed to grow even in the wildest situations: slow in their growth, it is true, and for the most part stunted; which may be attributed to their being grazed upon by sheep, and naked to the winds; for as those places which seem at present most unpromising with respect to this kind of vegetation, and where (particularly in peat-mosses on the tops of pretty high hills) no man can easily persuade himself that a stick of any kind would grow, are found yet filled with the roots, trunks, and branches of trees of very different sizes; it seems as if these places did but want their original encouragement to become forests again. It may indeed be alleged , in opposition to such a thought, that the soil itself has undergone a material change, that the fall of the woods and the stagnation of the waters has given birth to that vegetation which constitutes peat-mosses, and that this vegetation is an accumulation of putrid vegetable matter. If this be the case, yet still such putrid matter is found to be that of the roots of that plant, which in these parts is called Bent, and not of timber, which is generally preserved entire; and as this Bent seems the native and aboriginal growth of such Moors, who can prove that it did not exist at the same time as the woods, and that it did not occasion mosses then? Independent, however, of this, the circumstances which have fallen in the way of my observation make me think it far from impossible, that, were these countries left desolate by man and the tamer animals, for a great number of years that the ancient appearances would arise at large, and a sylvan wilderness efface the labours of the husbandman: this would begin probably in the warmer and more fertile places, and proceed gradually, one tree sheltering and encouraging another, to those which are more exposed and barren. There are still whole forests left on the sides of some hills, where many of the trees find nutriment almost upon the bare rock; they are also to be found in the more inaccessible parts of others, that are elsewhere naked. I do not indeed know of any positive evidence that can be produced, either on this side of the question or on the opposite one, neither does the discussion of it belong particularly to my subject; yet it may be proper to mention, as analogous to what has gone before, that in three old manuscripts I have found mention made of the porklings which ran wild in the woods growing on the sides of hills above Mungrisdale; that these porklings belonged to the Monks, who had a chauntry at a place called Stow in that neighbourhood; that from these Monks the chapel has a part of its name, and the other part from the old word signifying Swine. In Grisdale also you will, as in many other places, be told by some person or another, that in former times the trees were so close together, that a man has gone a certain distance, or ascended such or such a hill, without touching the ground, and merely travelling from the top of one tree to that of another; nor are these times so very remote, but your informer will in general tell you the name of the man whose forefather, at the distance of three or four ages, he was; yet a place less likely for the growth of timber, or more devoid of it at present, will not easily be found in the North of England. Even this, however, does not militate against what I formerly advanced; for trees will grow there, if encouraged; and some kinds, as the asp (sic), seem particularly disposed to propagate themselves. But the forest and its wild inhabitants generally shrink from the presence of man!
  forest clearance
It may be asked, at what period this general disforesting took place, and what was the particular occasion of it? I believe that no regular answer can be given to this question. It is said that the Romans were very industrious in destroying the woody
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