found much nearer the mark if we continue to build, as of late years, in merchants' yards-but more of this presently.* The commissioners then proceed to shew, 1. How the 100,000 acres are to be obtained. 2. In what course or rotation to be planted. 3. How the supply is to be furnished till the timber to be planted shall arrive at the requisite maturity. On the first point it appears from a report of Lord Glenbervie, when surveyorgeneral of the woods, &c. that 60,000 acres might be reckoned upon from the several royal forests; and it was suggested that the remaining 40,000 might probably be obtained from forest lands in the duchy of Lancaster-from Needwood forest, 3000 acres of which were appropriated to the crown-from allotments to the crown on the division of wastes and commons-by purchase or otherwise of lands locally situated within the different royal forests occupied by individuals either by legal title or by encroachments— by purchase of woodlands from private owners-and by purchasing out, or refusing the renewal of, crown leases of land containing oak coppices or land fit for the growth of oak. To which might be added a reservation in every enclosure bill of a certain proportion to be set apart for the express purpose of planting oaks, besides an obligatory clause to plant oaks in the fences at limited distances. It is well known that hedge timber, by its constant exposure to the sun and weather, is far superior to forest timber; and no good reason that we know of can be assigned against those two easy and certain measures of raising a future supply. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests observed that we had twenty millions of acres of waste land in the kingdom, a two-hundredth part of which, or 100,000 acres set apart for planting, would at once furnish the whole quantity wanted for the use of the navy. On the second point the surveyor-general was induced to think from various considerations, in which we entirely concur, that the 100,000 acres should be enclosed and planted at the rate of about 4000 acres annually, which would complete the whole in twentyfive years. And thirdly, the present and intermediate supply will be obtained from timber now ready for felling, and in its different stages, in the royal forests-on private estates-from thinnings of the new plantations for inferior purposes-by importations of foreign oak-and by the use of other kinds of timber. The report concludes by a statement of what has actually been done or * In a former article on this subject we estimated the tonnage of the navy in employ at 400,000; the average duration of a ship of war at twelve years and a half; and allowing one-fourth part for repairs, we calculated the annual consumption of oak timber for the navy at 60,000 loads. We have seen no grounds for altering our opinion on this point-provided, however, we shall henceforward exclude from the navy merchant-built ships of the line. undertaken undertaken in prosecution of the plans for raising navy timber; and the exertions that have been used by Lord Glenbervie, and his colleagues, appear to us to be exceedingly praiseworthy-they seem to have already appropriated about 35,000 acres for this purpose. The principal resources in our opinion for the next fifty or sixty years must be looked for in the importation of foreign timber, and the substitution of other woods for oak. If the use of British oak was confined to the navy, we should say with the London shipbuilders that there was no apprehension of a scarcity, but we have shewn, on a former occasion, that the consumption of oak timber in the navy is but one-tenth part of the quantity consumed in the country; and of this small proportion a certain part, perhaps onesixth or one-eighth, has been imported from foreign countries. The largest importation, however, in any one year has not, we believe, exceeded 20,000 loads; but the quantity of fir timber imported has been from 240 to 250,000 loads a-year. Of this fir we are now building a considerable number of the largest class of frigates, which, though less durable than oak, will be the means of saving so much of this more valuable timber, and probably of sparing from the axe our native trees of fifty or sixty years standing till they arrive at a sufficient growth for building ships of the line. These are the only trees, while bark remains at the present price, that will ever reach that standing on private property; and when those shall be exhausted, and until the new plantations of the crown lands shall be fit for use, we have only to look forward to the two great sources of supply which we still have within ourselves—the larch, elm, beech, &c. plantations of Great Britain, and the teak of India. No timber that we are acquainted with is equal in quality to that of the larch with the same rapidity of growth. It fails only, where all other woods fail, not even oak and teak excepted, when exposed to the alternate action of heat and moisture, of wind and water; but for all the lower parts of a ship and those that are constantly immersed in water, larch may be considered as very little inferior to oak. So fully impressed was the Empress Catherine with the valuable properties of this timber that the exportation of it from Russia was, and we believe still is, prohibited. The rapidity of its growth is such that it has been found, by repeated trials, to double in diameter that of the oak in a given time, and consequently, the bulks being as the squares of their diameters, to produce, in the same time, four times the quantity of timber. Its usual annual increase, till it arrives at a certain age, is from one and a half to two inches in circumference; so that a tree of thirty years standing will measure from four to five feet in girth. There are well authenticated instances of trees of sixty years of age mea suring twelve feet in girth and producing three hundred feet of timber: others of fifty years have been found to measure ten feet in girth and seventy feet in height of stem. Mr. Marshall measured a larch in the grounds of Blair of Athol, which, at five feet from the ground, girthed upwards of eight feet and was estimated to contain four tons of timber; its age fifty-four years. At Dunkeld he measured another of little more than fifty years old, which, at the same height, girthed eight feet and a half; it was nearly an hundred feet high, and its solid contents were from four to five tons of timber. The Dukes of Athol and Montrose, Lord Fife, and several other great landholders in Scotland, have made very extensive plantations of this tree and the Scotch fir, which are rapidly rising into magnificent forests, and will, in the course of a few years, compensate in some measure the loss of our native oak timber. The inducement, indeed, to plant larch operates nearly in the same proportion as the discouragement to plant oak; not only because it will grow on poor gravelly soils, not fit for any other kind of produce, but also because the returns of profit are rapid and prodigious. The Bishop of Landaff, in a paper addressed to the President of the Board of Agriculture, has given a calculation of the probable expense and profit, at the end of sixty years, of a plantation of larches made by himself, consisting of 322,500 trees on 379 acres of land. The expense of planting at thirty shillings a thousand-the compound interest at 5 per cent. for sixty years-the loss of rent at half a crown an acre, make the whole loss sustained at the end of sixty years amount to £13,798. At twenty years from the planting he reckons on thinning out 161,000; at forty years 80,000, and at sixty years the remaining 80,000. The price,' says he,' of 161,000 trees of twenty years growth improved for forty years, together with that of 80,000 trees improved for twenty years, being added to that of 80,000 trees of sixty years growth, will, I conjecture, upon the most moderate computation, amount to £150,000, if the commerce of the country and the price of foreign fir wood continue for sixty years without diminution.' Most heartily do we pray that the venerable prelate's calculations may be realized, and that his numerous family may reap the full benefit of his laudable exertions in this important and patriotic undertaking. Our immediate reliance, however, for relief must rest chiefly on the teak of India. Already two ships of the line have been launched from the dock-yard of Bombay, and two others we understand have been ordered to be built. Each of these, as we before mentioned, is to bring home its duplicate in its hold to be set up in his Majesty's yards at home. Several frigates and smaller vessels are also ordered to be built; and we trust that no fallacious representations will intervene so as to overturn this system of building VOL. X. NO. XIX. ships ships for the navy in our Indian territories, or to prevent the import of teak timber from them for the use of the dockyards; but that the plan will be continued until we have, at least, half the naval force of the empire composed of this almost imperishable material. If the first cost of the ships built in India, through the medium of the East India Company, be somewhat more than the cost of the same classes of ships respectively at home, their prolonged duration makes them incomparably cheaper in the end. It is not true, as the home builders would have us believe, that mercantile ships can be built and fitted in India for one-third less cost than in England, and that therefore they are not built for the growing and progressive wants of navigation, but for sale in England. They are built, as we said before, as the means and the only means of transmitting home the capitals of individuals realized in India, and transmitting them moreover in that kind of produce which could not otherwise be disposed of by the natives. It is now too late to deplore that policy which has taught the Asiatics to rival us in the art of ship-building, and in many spe cies of manufacture. There are parts, we have understood, in the construction of the Minden from which our best builders might derive instruction. That narrow-minded and selfish policy is no longer of avail which, in the true spirit of trading, would monopolize to ourselves all the commerce and all the manufactures of the world. The sounder and more liberal opinion now is, that commerce and manufactures increase and multiply, in every individual country, the more they are in general cultivation, and the more widely they are spread throughout the world. But, say the advocates for limiting ship-building to the banks of the Thames, the navigation act, that monument of human wisdom on which our salvation depends, and the deep and provident policy of which has been applauded by Bacon, (who, by the way, died nearly thirty years before the act was in existence,) and Clarendon, and even' by Doctor Smith, is violated by the feeble and puny statesmen of to-day.' It is not unusual to attempt to prop up a tottering argument by the revival of prejudices which have taken hold of the public mind, and by quoting the opinions of the great men of former days. The navigation act has frequently been, and must necessarily be, suspended during war; it is violated every hour in the trade of every part of the world; and if Lord Clarendon, or even' Adam Smith, could be asked whether, in their opinion, it would be more advisable to employ foreign-built ships, or to cramp our trade for want of ships, or to dismantle the navy, that trading ships may be 'navigated according to law,' we have very little doubt of the answer they would make to such questions. But Adam Smith's praise of this act, the offspring offspring of national animosity and jealousy levelled against the Dutch, is faint indeed. He states it be, as it unquestionably is, unfavourable to foreign commerce, and to the growth of that opulence which arises out of it; and concludes that, as defence is much more important than opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.' But further, say the advocates of the Thames ship-builders, we may lose India, and the enemy get possession of those resources which we have taught the natives to bring into full and effective activity. So we may, and we may lose Ireland too; and perhaps there are not wanting those who think it the best policy to discourage all improvement, on the same ground, even in Ireland. We think however that, if we are to lose India, the surest way of recovering it is to make our loss both felt and regretted by the natives; and the surest way of gaining the affection of the natives is to avail ourselves of the resources of the country by encouraging a spirit of industry among the people. But the fact is, that the Asiatics require not our teaching them to build ships. The French in Rangoon long ago taught them that art in perfection; and the only difference is, that the British merchants resident in India now build ships in Calcutta and Bombay with the teak of India, instead of purchasing them at Rangoon where they are built of the teak of Ava and Pegu; and we think that unprejudiced men will agree in the policy of making use of the teak forests on our own territories, while they remain in our possession, rather than leaving them untouched and available for the services of the enemy in the event of our losing India.' So, however, think not the ship-builders on the banks of the Thames. Not more pregnant with evils was the box of Pandora than, according to their statements, will the measure be of building ships in India and admitting them to a registry in England. All the arts and sciences, all the manufactures, mines, agriculture, fisheries, shipping, colonies and revenue are marshalled in array, with the various trades and occupations dependant on them, from the ship-builder down to the green-grocer and the dealer in oakum, and made subservient to the ship-owners of London, who, with this host of dependants, are all to be ruined by half a dozen 'black ships,' as they are pleased to call them, bringing cargoes of raw produce for the use of the manufacturers of this country. Another argument, which they consider not the least powerful in the effect they wish to produce, is grounded on the alleged distress that would ensue to the numerous shipwrights and their families by being deprived of employment. We are told that no less than 570 ships of our present navy have been constructed in the private yards, which, in peace, have always been hitherto the B 2 asylum |