Re: Lack Of Trees In Irish And British Countrysides

On 5/7/2008 3:53 PM, Way Back Jack wrote:
> TV do***entaries and travelogues reveal a lot of lush "green" in those
> countrysides but a relative scarcity of trees.  Is it climate?  Too
> windy in Ireland?  Sheep and/or other livestock?

I read somewhere (I think it might have been in Winston Churchill's "A
History of the English-Speaking Peoples") that a medieval king of
England ordered the planting of oaks so that a later generation might
have the raw materials to build war ****ps.  However, trees take up land
that might instead be used for crops or pastures.

On my own standard tract lot, I have 14 trees.  Some are trees only in
name.  Three are dwarf citrus and will never be tree-like.  But nine of
them are truly trees in size and shape.

-- 
David E. Ross
Climate:  California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at <http://www.rossde.com/garden/>