It stands to reason that as domestic population rose and industrial activity
increased the demand for both coppice, for charcoal, and timber, for house
and ship building, increased. Under the coppice and standard system, there
was no competition as one provided the space for the other. The result of
increased demand was not deforestation - wood is renewable - but an
increased exploitation of areas some distance from where the wood was
needed. For example the woodland in Argyll, Scotland, by Lakeland
ironmasters, who carried iron ore from Furness to the wood. The effect of
increased demand in the Weald was not, as was once supposed, a reduction in
the amount of available woodland, but a continued meeting of demand,
sustaining a large acreage in coppice and timber, and an increase in the
price of wood, resulting in market forces eventually putting charcoal-based
ironmasters out of business in favour of those with access
to coal, who could use cheaper coke instead. It was true that in early Tudor
times much indiscriminate cutting of woodland led to alarm, and the enacting
of legislation to protect it, but the very wooded nature of the Weald,
still, testifies to the maintenance of the woodland rather than its
depletion.
Jeremy Hodgkinson
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