On Thu, 8 May 2008 16:57:04 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given
wrote:

"Way Back Jack" wrote in message

TV documentaries 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 ownership 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 warships 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.

Nik

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