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Cobbett 1830
... the danger of breaking my neck at Hawkley and of getting buried in the
bogs of Woolmer Forest. My route was through East-Meon, Froxfield, Hawkley,
Greatham, and then over Woolmer Forest, (a heath if you please) to
Headley.
...
Upon leaving Greatham, we came out upon Woolmer Forest. ... The man told me,
that I must go across the forest. I asked him whether it was a good road: 'it is
a sound road,' said he, laying a weighty emphasis upon the word sound. 'Do
people go it?' said I. 'Ye-es,' said he. 'Oh then,' said I, to my man, 'as it is
sound road, keep you close to my heels, and do not attempt to go aside, not even
for a foot.' Indeed it was a sound road. The rain of the night had made fresh
horse tracks visible. And we got to Headley in a short time, over a sand-road,
which seemed so delightful after the flints and stone and dirt and sloughs that
we had passed over and through since the morning! This road was not, if we had
been benighted, without its dangers, the forest being full of quags and
quicksands. This is a tract of Crown-lands, or, properly speaking, public-lands,
on some parts of which our Land Steward, Mr. HUSKISSON, is making some
plantations of trees, partly fir, and partly other trees. What he can plant the
fir for, God only knows, seeing that the country is already over-stocked with
that rubbish. ...
The soil of this tract is, generally, a black sand, which, in some places,
becomes peat, which makes a very tolerable fuel. In some parts there is clay at
bottom; and there the oaks would grow; but not while there are hares in any
number in the forest. If trees be to grow here, there ought to be no hares and
as little hunting as possible.
...
I GOT a boy at Selborne to show me along the lanes out into Woolmer forest on
my way to Headley. The lanes were very deep; the wet malme just about the colour
of rye-meal mixed up with water, and just about as clammy, came, in many places,
very nearly up to my horse's belly. There was this comfort, however, that I was
sure that there was a bottom, which is by no means the case when you are among
clays or quick-sands. After going through these lanes, and along between some
fir-plantations, I came out upon Woolmer Forest, and, to my great satisfaction,
soon found myself on the side of those identical plantations, which have been
made under the orders of the smooth Mr. Huskisson, and which I noticed last year
in my ride from Hambledon to this place. These plantations are of fir, or at
least, I could see nothing else, and they never can be of any more use to the
nation than the sprigs of heath which cover the rest of the forest. Is there
nobody to inquire what becomes of the income of the crown-lands? No, and there
never will be, until the whole system be changed. ...
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