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Hi Steve & All, Dec 17, 2015
I take exception to your--
"This article concerns hedgerows, and doesn't touch on the massive
deforestation in much of the UK, to fuel such early practices as charcoal
production for iron smelting. " from the previous e-mail of Dec 17.
As covered in some detail in Trees, Woods and Man, H.L.Edlin, 1956, 272
pp. most deforestation was a gradual consequence of other practices such as
mowing natural hay or bedding in relatively open woodland and the teeth of
domesticated animals which killed any regeneration. Without regeneration the
forest gradually died out. This information is scattered & I will not
attempt to dig it out.
But can quote from the passage which relates to charcoal (p. 88) "Vast
quantities of wood were consumed for charcoal. to "reduce" the iron ores to
metal before the use of coke was understood (Straker, 1931). But it was cut
from coppices of broadleaved trees, which sent up fresh shoots from their
stumps within a year of being felled; and these coppices were managed by men
who knew the elements of rotational cutting. So today in the very region
where devastation might otherwise have been greatest, we find the only large
portion of England with an outstandingly high proportion of woodland; in the
five south-eastern counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Berkshire, and
Hampshire 14.6 per cent of the land as against 5.8 per cent for England as a
whole."
Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
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