Re: Lack Of Trees In Irish And British Countrysides

Someone else wrote:
> On Thu, 8 May 2008 16:57:04 +1000, "FarmI" <ask@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 be given>
> wrote:
>
>> "Way Back Jack" <retired@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>>> 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've not noticed a lack of trees in most of Britain when I've been
>> there. The north western parts of Scotland certainly lack trees and
>> the vegetation of the Burren in Ireland is well known
>> internationally (but not for it's trees).  Scotland used to be
>> covered by the Calidonian Forest and had wolves and beaver but I
>> can't recall why it went belly up.  Ireland suffered from ice
>> coverage during the Ice Ages so any trees there had to come back as
>> pioneer species.
>>
>> Large numbers of people, 'modern farming' and trees don't go
>> together.  As the population grew the trees would have had to go, or
>> in some instances, 'modern farming' methods were the cause of
>> clearance too.  Ireland's population exploded after the introduction
>> of the potato and you can't grow spuds in forests so even if there
>> had been a desire to grow more trees, there would have been a strong
>> disincentive to do so.
>
> Ireland had extensive forest cover well prior to the arrival of
> potatos in Europe...which, remember, were introduced by Sir Walter
> Raleigh after he returned from the New World...so you're telling me
> that in the roughly 150 years between the arrival of the potato in
> western Europe, including Ireland, from South America, and the Potato
> Famine of the 1840s that Ireland's population grew so much that it had
> also become deforested?
>
> Why do you neglect to mention the impact on farm owner****p patterns
> incurred by the Penal Laws?
>
> http://local.law.umn.edu/irishlaw/land.html
>
> Also you neglect to mention that the English desire to build a fleet
> of war****ps to fight the Spanish Armada and where they obtained the
> timber to do so...
>
> You may (or may not) know a lot about Botany but you don't know much
> about the natural and human history of Ireland.

Ireland's population grew to around 8 million. But that had little to do 
with the state of the forests. Disease and over harvesting of trees were
the 
main causes of the deforestation. Manufacturing, farming, and the monies 
being made out of harvesting the peat bogs were main causes. (Alas Bord Na

Mona, so much for greed).
Blaming the British, (English) is merely being paranoid and specious. 
Britain had more than enough forests of her own to build all the ****ps she

wished!!

-- 
Hal Ó Mearadhaigh.