10

Two years before this time the Admiralty had called the attention of the
Commissioners of Woods, &c., to the most proper means of improving the
durability of oak timber, which had always been supposed to be best
secured by its being felled in winter, although, owing to its involving
the loss of the bark, the practice had not become general. To avoid such
loss it was determined, on the 15th of March this year, that the bark
should be stripped in the spring from the trees standing, leaving them to
be felled in the ensuing or some subsequent spring, five shillings per
load being allowed for the additional trouble occasioned thereby. But
this determination was not formed without careful investigation and
experiment. Thus in the previous year (1814) thirty trees were marked
and set apart in each of the Royal Forests, "which were divided into five
classes: three of the classes were stripped standing, but with some
variety in method, and left to be felled in winter; the second class was
felled, but left with the bark on; and the third felled, and then
immediately afterwards stripped in the usual way." But the results of
these different methods are not stated.

Licences to erect machinery were granted in the preceding year to Messrs.
Kear for a waterwheel at Park End in connexion with a mill for pounding
slag from the iron furnaces, and to Mr. Mushet for a steam engine at
Deepfield, and to Mr. John Protheroe for an engine at Whitelay Colliery;
and in the present year two steam engines were licensed at Upper Bilson
by Mr. Thomas Bennett, and one at Smith's Folly by Mr. Glover.

In the course of the succeeding year (1816) the last of the enclosures,
as set out by the commissioners appointed under the Act of 1808, were
completed, viz.--

A. R. P.
Perch, 386 1 15 near Coleford.
containing
Aston 475 0 4 ,, Lydbrook.
Bridge
Kinsley 376 1 27 ,, the Speech
Ridge House.
---- -- --
Total 1237 3 6

The second report of the Commissioners of Woods, dated the 18th of May,
and signed by Wm. Huskisson, Wm. Dacres Adams, Henry Dawkins, states
"that 9,389 acres of this Forest had been enclosed and planted, the
remai