Category: Villages, Towns and Places

Some notes written by Richard Colt Hoare, of Stourhead, in 1814:

The Growth Of Timber

Whilst, at a period when the population of Great-Britain has been ascertained to be rapidly increasing, and the produce of grain found inadequate to the consumption of its inhabitants, the attention of Land-owners has been very justly directed towards the cultivation of our Waste Lands with Corn; yet there are instances where that attention might be more advantageously directed towards the growth of Timber.

In the autumn of the year 1813, I cut down a grove of fir-trees, which, from the decayed state of their upper branches, seemed to indicate a full growth and maturity. They had been planted by order of my predecessor at Stourhead, Henry Hoare, Esq.; about the year 1758, and upon so very shallow a soil, that the roots, in order to procure the necessary nourishment, were forced to extend themselves along the surface; in short, the soil was of so poor a nature, that it could not have been applied to any other purpose but to the growth of trees. The situation, however, was sheltered, and on that account well adapted to the fir tribe. Beech and other deciduous trees had been intermixed with them, but not in any great quantity; and no attention had been paid to this grove, either by thinning or pruning, since the day of its first plantation. The greater part of the firs were spruce, the remainder Scotch.

The number of trees cut down was ninety-two; and the space of ground on which they stood was three rood, or three-quarters of an acre. Their produce amounted to ninety ton of measured timber, which, at the low price of £4 per ton, produced the sum of £360. The largest tree measured in length sixty-three feet, and in girth fifteen feet and three-quarters, and contained one hundred and eight feet of timber. These trees, owing to a want of attention in trimming and selecting, varied very much in size, some not containing above eight feet of timber. Yet with all these disadvantages of nature and art, this small and poor plot of ground, from the date of its first plantation in 1758, has, for the term of fifty-five years, paid at the rate of £8 14s. 6d. per acre, or £6 10s. 10d. per annum, for the three rood of land on which these ninety-two trees stood; and if proper attention had been given to this grove for a few years after its first plantation, and if it had been situated nearer to some great town, both the size of the timber, as well as the sale of it, would have been considerably increased.

These trees grew in a plantation just beneath the building in my woods, called the Convent.

A general idea prevails that firs will grow any where, on any soil, or in any situation. I allow that they will grow, but not pay the planter interest for growing, in exposed situations; for though the soil cannot be too poor, if dry, for this tribe of plants, yet a certain degree of shelter is absolutely necessary. I have found the larch fir to be of a much hardier nature than the Scotch; it grows quicker, measures more in length when cut down, and is closer and harder in its texture. The spruce fir , though fine timber, requires more shelter than either the Scotch fir or larch.

In former days, a most injudicious mixture of trees was made in the extensive plantations of this neighbourhood, namely, beech and fir, by which union the luxuriant inclination of the former was totally checked, and rendered as straight and formal a pole as its neighbour. The beech will not bear trimming, except when very young; and being the most unsaleable wood in our district, should be considered as a tree of ornament, not of profit; whereas the growth of fir trees is so rapid, as (making use of an old expression) to enable the proprietor to purchase a horse, before any other plantation would enable him to buy a saddle.

By the above statement, I do not wish to encourage the Land-owner to appropriate to the growth of Timber any soil that is equal to the continued growth of Corn, which in the increasing state of our population ought to be the primary object of attention. My sole object has been to shew what an advantageous profit may be made on land which has been rendered unfit by nature for the growth of corn.