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>> is mentioned in that
Unlike others continuing this thread with contrasting opinions, I've no expertise in this area and no serious dog in the race (and I don't have a hangover either). However, I took a look at Dave W's main authoritative(?) web site
http://www.ukagriculture.com/countryside/charcoal_history.cfm
with the following impressions/ conclusions:
• it's a pop article, supposedly for general public education about agriculture, neither too long nor too short. But can we depend on it for correct information without bias?
• it's anonymous -- there are no given authors, and therefore no author affiliations. Are the authors experts, or agricultural industry research assistants with a given mission?
• there are no citations in it and no references cited at the end, none at all, so it obviously doesn't qualify as a serious article with any academic or other pretensions. Just 'take it from us'.
• It is undated, except copyrighted 1999-2016
• It is one of the sites produced by Living Countryside, which indicates it is a Company registered as a charity in UK. As such it can presumably generate tax deductions for anyone underwriting it.
• On the Living Countryside site, I could find no reference as to who the trustees are (no names): three people are named in 'About Us' as writers/custodians of the web site, not the same thing.
• I could find no mention of who funds this anonymous group that is set up as a registered charity. The site is managed, they say, by 'dedicated unpaid volunteers' (unnamed). But who wrote the stuff, who paid them, and who pays for site upkeep?
• they 'believe in countryside preservation through a viable agricultural industry'. Feels good, but raises the question of which comes first, and why the anonymity.
I would judge the site above as not even in the same league as an average Wikipedia article. I can't quite place it, but it very well could be a shill for powerful agricultural interests who perhaps underwrite it and are interested in presenting the industry in the best possible light, where facts and evidence come second. The web site above seems to suggest that the coppicing of trees was self-contained recycling system that provided a stable supply of wood for charcoal for iron working to ~1900, and that agriculture/forest practice was benign -- not responsible for deforestation, something Dave W. mentioned before and apparently buys into. The message seems to be that things were pretty stable from ~1700-1900, though in the since-1900 last section they do acknowledge the rise of coke. This benign message is not what I had picked up from other sources.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I think I smell a benevolent-sounding but well-fed rat, and would not quote an amateurish, unreferenced pop site to support any important conclusion. Does anyone on this list know anything specific about Living Countryside, like who funds it, or who's in it? Has anyone run into it before?
Steve (Hfx)
________________________________________
From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] on behalf of Nicholas Hill [fernhillns@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 1, 2016 9:24 PM
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
Thanks David
But I question the logic of the last Para.
In my county Devon, we have some good stands of beech. The story was that these were planted for charcoal but since the technology changed w coal coke replacing charcoal, the beech were left and are now substantial.
Needs study but it opens up assumptions which is good.
In this same county we have Woodbury Common where tradional cutting of trees perhaps grazing and the cutting of furze (gorse) led to the romantic moorland that is probably product of continual nutrient removal and not a native system in this place. Monbiot as you know has some hard words for the sheep in the lake district and in scotland which prevents the reinstatement of Caledonian forest (sheep wrecked)
Nick
On Jan 1, 2016 8:04 PM, "David & Alison Webster" <dwebster@glinx.com<mailto:dwebster@glinx.com>> wrote:
Hi Nick & All, Jan 1, 2016
The idea that---"England....was charcoaling most of its forests." for the reduction of iron and the use of coke prevented widespread deforestation is a widespread myth but is at variance with the facts*.
The large ironworks which developed for volume production, e.g. casting of large cannon were not at all portable so they had to rely on nearby forests and take care to not deplete them, as outlined below
From: http://www.ukagriculture.com/countryside/charcoal_history.cfm
"Although historians have often considered that the excessive felling of timber to fuel the iron industries resulted in woodland loss, it is now recognised that this theory is wholly incorrect. The iron industry was long term in nature and iron works jealously guarded their supplies. Furthermore, most of the timber used in the charcoal kiln was of coppice origin. Coppice material was of regular size, was easy to handle and load and required minimal recutting. Woods close to the iron works survived because their place as fuel providers to the iron industry raised their economic importance and prevented their loss to agriculture as happened elsewhere."
*[note, no references given in this quote or elsewhere: note added by Steve S.]
The above is in substantial agreement with information from Edlin which I posted a while ago; it being--
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 lan