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?

On 5/7/2008 3:53 PM, Way Back Jack wrote:
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 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 ships. 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/

David E. Ross wrote:
On 5/7/2008 3:53 PM, Way Back Jack wrote:
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 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 ships. However, trees take up
land that might instead be used for crops or pastures.

"O bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

"O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

"All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying, "Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down
And the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground."

"O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnrNYtOsbEg

Portmore Castle was destroyed in 1716. The song dates to about 1745.

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.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

My assumption would be the same situation as The Epic of Gilgamesh. In
that myth Gilgamesh sets out to appease the God of the Forest and
thereby gain immortality. Gilgamesh is a hero of ancient Sumeria, but
over the centuries Gilgamesh fell upon hard times. You see, Sumeria's
power was based on the manufacture of bronze, which required large
amounts of fuel. The original hardwood forests of Mesopotamia offered
unlimited fuel, and Sumeria's power was a result of harvesting that
fuel to manufacture bronze weapons and tools. But over the centuries
the trees were harvested and woodcutters had to travel farther and
farther to harvest fuel. This is known as the law of diminishing
returns. The original lesson in unsutustainable economics. The
Sumerians didn't know about ecology or economics, so an angry God was
punishing them for destroying the forest. In the end, Sumeria meets
her extinction and Gilgamesh is shown to be a mortal. The god of the
forest destroys Sumeria and to this day that region is essentially
desert. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the first documented case of a human
caused environmental disaster.

The Romans continued the tradition of unlimited military conquest to
feed their need for fuel. By that time iron was the metal of choice.
Iron required more heat than bronze, and soon the hardwood forests of
the Mediterranean were depleted. Because of their proximity to
waterways, the British Isles were targeted to supply hardwood for
metal smelting. Once the trees were harvested, sheep and goats ensured
the forest could not regrow. A large part of the poverty in Europe
through the centuries was the result of the stripping of resources by
the Romans. Most people are willig to give the Romans credit for
building good roads, but in reality those roads would not have been
built if there was not fuel to harvest and transport to the smelter.

Ironically, the United States is repeating the same pattern now with
petroleum. We have a state-sponsored military that enforces the
harvesting of a fuel and we are leaving nothing for them in return. It
seems the human race has learned very little from history, and at this
rate history will have very little good to say about the United
States.

-- Gnarlodious
http://Gnarlodious.com/

"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?

A few thousand years of human habitation and their domestic animals has
greatly reduced the trees. Prior to high densities of humans much of Europe
was heavily forested as the gulf stream moderates the temperature considerably
compared to similar latitudes in Asia or America.

David

In article ,
(Way Back Jack) wrote:

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?

Long story short, the British built ships with which to conquer
and colonize the world.
--

Billy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related

On Wed, 07 May 2008 22:53:06 GMT, (Way Back Jack)
wrote:

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?

Ireland was covered in trees before the English needed timber to built
the fleet that fought the Spanish Armada.

Nik

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"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.

On May 7, 11:53 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:
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?

One factor is this:
The EU has been paying farmers to cut down trees for a long time.
I think it is now paying people to plant them again.

On May 8, 11:15 am, mothed out wrote:
On May 7, 11:53 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:

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?

One factor is this:
The EU has been paying farmers to cut down trees for a long time.
I think it is now paying people to plant them again.

Tree coverage in Ireland was at its lowest point a century ago. The
EU has nothing to do with it. In fact, Irish tree coverage has been
slowly growing since the 70s. The trees disappeared for farming, fuel
and for building (including ships), centuries ago.

On May 8, 12:49 pm, Des Higgins wrote:
On May 8, 11:15 am, mothed out wrote:

On May 7, 11:53 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:

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?

One factor is this:
The EU has been paying farmers to cut down trees for a long time.
I think it is now paying people to plant them again.

Tree coverage in Ireland was at its lowest point a century ago. The
EU has nothing to do with it. In fact, Irish tree coverage has been
slowly growing since the 70s. The trees disappeared for farming, fuel
and for building (including ships), centuries ago.

You may well be right. I'm no real expert on this.
I can say that I once saw a documentary on the subject in which they
interviewed a farmer, who seemed a really reasonable person with a
willingness to help the environment as far as he is able. However, he
explained how he had no realistic option but to fell a lot of the
trees on his land because he then received better subsidies for
putting the land to different use. He just couldn't afford to write
off the sum he made from doing that, I couldn't have said I'd have
done a differently in his shoes, which spelt death for most of the
trees on his land.
Another EU factor which I think may have an impact on re-
forestation is the big subsidies that currently go to sheep farmers.
For example, most of the hill landscapes in the british isles, in all
the various countries, are completely without trees because they are
given to sheep farming. As I understand, this farming would not be
happening on anything like this scale without the subsidies. I have a
friend with some land in Conemara, and the whole area is (in one way
of looking at it) 'devastated' by sheep farming. Just by fencing off a
part of his land, we soon saw how small tree saplings were taking root
which would otherwise be barren, close-munched grass. Also, when you
find small rocky areas where sheep can't reach on cliffs and
waterfalls, you will nearly always see the native tree species such as
oak trying to come though. I was pretty sad to find about ten
neglected sheep (belonging to his neighbour) dying slowly and
miserably on land less than a mile from their owner's house, mostly
dying of parasitic infection of the liver I believe. These sheep lie
incapacitated sometimes for days on the ground before dying. Someone
told me the owner doesn't really care coz he only keeps the sheep for
the subsidy. I don't know if that's true, but whatever, it didn't look
like real farming to me. On top of this, water supplies to places like
Galway have been rendered undrinkable because of washoff and general
shite from the farming, and the land owners are not fencing the
animals away from the watercourses, rivers etc, which they should be
doing I think, and is part of the cause of the problem. Personally I'd
like to see a long term policy regarding EU subsidy which moved away
from this kind of omnipresent artificially subsidised sheep industry.
It doesn't make much sense...for example, in Wales I remember being
able to see thousands of sheep from my windows, but would still always
find New Zealand lamb in the freezers of the local chain stores (and
stop to think how much energy and pollution was spent shipping that NZ
lamb to the UK). In view of the environmental damage this strangely
organised industry causes, surely there is some less damaging way we
could subsidise rural people? While this system holds sway, i don't
see how you'd get the chance to restore the kind of tree cover that
existed historically in Ireland.

Way Back Jack wrote:
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?

Loreena Mckennitt and some unknown 18th century songwriter pretty much
say it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnrNYtOsbEg

"O bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying, "Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down
And the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground."

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore."

ca 1745.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On May 8, 3:17 pm, mothed out wrote:
On May 8, 12:49 pm, Des Higgins wrote:



On May 8, 11:15 am, mothed out wrote:

On May 7, 11:53 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:

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?

One factor is this:
The EU has been paying farmers to cut down trees for a long time.
I think it is now paying people to plant them again.

Tree coverage in Ireland was at its lowest point a century ago. The
EU has nothing to do with it. In fact, Irish tree coverage has been
slowly growing since the 70s. The trees disappeared for farming, fuel
and for building (including ships), centuries ago.

You may well be right. I'm no real expert on this.
I can say that I once saw a documentary on the subject in which they
interviewed a farmer, who seemed a really reasonable person with a
willingness to help the environment as far as he is able. However, he
explained how he had no realistic option but to fell a lot of the
trees on his land because he then received better subsidies for
putting the land to different use. He just couldn't afford to write
off the sum he made from doing that, I couldn't have said I'd have
done a differently in his shoes, which spelt death for most of the
trees on his land.
Another EU factor which I think may have an impact on re-
forestation is the big subsidies that currently go to sheep farmers.

There are 2 issues here; one is whether or not EU subsidies are a good
idea for the environment. It is complicated; there are certainly
problems caused by it.
Equally, much of the environmental legislation here on water quality
etc. only exists or is only enforced because of the EU.
However, what we were asking about was tree cover. How come, I can
remember the Dublin mountains being just as treeless as they are now
(maybe more so), even before Ireland joined the EU? Ireland lost its
forests in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yes it is sustained partly
that way because of agriculture; centuries of it.
The EU is neither here nor there.

The para below is from
http://www.woodlandsofireland.com/do...nt_History.pdf

"By the time of the death of Elizabeth I
in 1603 AD, tree cover in Ireland was
diminished to the extent that, according
to estimates, woodland cover accounted
for no more that 12.5%, and as low as
2%, of the land area. At the same time,
both merchant and naval shipbuilding,
although never practiced on the scale it
was in Britain, also increased in Ireland.
Timber for ships was exported to England
from Waterford in 1608 AD, and the East
India Company is known to have established
a yard at Dundaniel in Cork some time
before 1613 AD (Neeson, 1995)."

this below is from
http://www.wicklowmountainsnationalpark.ie/history.html

"Much of the area, particularly in the south, was heavily forested and
had proved a boon to rebelling forces during the centuries of war, so
a policy of removing the tree-cover was instigated. In fact, forestry
was already well established as County Wicklow's first true industry.
During the Tudor period, timber had become valuable. It was required
for fuel and heat, housing and ship-building. Wood-charcoal was also
the main resource used for smelting iron. The magnificent oak woods
near Shillelagh, in the south of the county, were particularly well
renowned and Sir Arthur Chichester in 1608 noted that the timber from
these woods could '...furnish the King for his shipping and other uses
for 20 years to come'. At this time Wicklow was the only remaining
county in Leinster with extensive tree cover."


For example, most of the hill landscapes in the british isles, in all
the various countries, are completely without trees because they are
given to sheep farming. As I understand, this farming would not be
happening on anything like this scale without the subsidies. I have a
friend with some land in Conemara, and the whole area is (in one way
of looking at it) 'devastated' by sheep farming. Just by fencing off a
part of his land, we soon saw how small tree saplings were taking root
which would otherwise be barren, close-munched grass. Also, when you
find small rocky areas where sheep can't reach on cliffs and
waterfalls, you will nearly always see the native tree species such as
oak trying to come though. I was pretty sad to find about ten
neglected sheep (belonging to his neighbour) dying slowly and
miserably on land less than a mile from their owner's house, mostly
dying of parasitic infection of the liver I believe. These sheep lie
incapacitated sometimes for days on the ground before dying. Someone
told me the owner doesn't really care coz he only keeps the sheep for
the subsidy. I don't know if that's true, but whatever, it didn't look
like real farming to me. On top of this, water supplies to places like
Galway have been rendered undrinkable because of washoff and general
shite from the farming, and the land owners are not fencing the
animals away from the watercourses, rivers etc, which they should be
doing I think, and is part of the cause of the problem. Personally I'd
like to see a long term policy regarding EU subsidy which moved away
from this kind of omnipresent artificially subsidised sheep industry.
It doesn't make much sense...for example, in Wales I remember being
able to see thousands of sheep from my windows, but would still always
find New Zealand lamb in the freezers of the local chain stores (and
stop to think how much energy and pollution was spent shipping that NZ
lamb to the UK). In view of the environmental damage this strangely
organised industry causes, surely there is some less damaging way we
could subsidise rural people? While this system holds sway, i don't
see how you'd get the chance to restore the kind of tree cover that
existed historically in Ireland.

In article ,
"J. Clarke" wrote:

Way Back Jack wrote:
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?

Loreena Mckennitt and some unknown 18th century songwriter pretty much
say it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnrNYtOsbEg

"O bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying, "Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?"
For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down
And the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground."

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore."

ca 1745.

--

Here in the USA the rate of deforesting was something 17 acres a day to
turn into charcoal which ran one of our iron works for one day. Don't
ask for a site as it is most likely wrong.

If goggle is our friend.

http://books.google.com/books?id=bDr...=PA316&dq=defo
resting+charcoal+pennsylvania&source=web&ots=_-OqLaZQcj&sig=g9oRdPfW-1Jpm
dUsLdw6ggYQWmk&hl=en

or

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3tcazw

Bill

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

In article ,
Way Back Jack wrote:
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?


The Roe Valley has quite a few very nice woods, though a lot of the large
commercial forests are terrible and a scar on the countryside. Farmers
tended to fell trees everywhere except around their houses I think, hence
certain places have many fine old trees.

Our own house was build on the site of an old farm house and there must be
about sixty trees on our site, most of them near a hundred years old. Some
of them, particularly the ash trees are a wonderful sight.

They were planted as a windbreak, and do that job quite well.

Jochen

--

------------------------------------
Limavady and the Roe Valley
http://www.jochenlueg.freeuk.com