To give an idea of the enormous quantity of timber necessary to
construct a ship of war, we may observe that 2,000 tons, or 3,000 loads,
are computed to be required for a seventy-four. Now, reckoning fifty
oaks to the acre, of 100 years' standing, and the quantity in each tree
to be a load and a half, it would require forty acres of oak forest to
build one seventy-four; and the quantity increases in a great ratio, for
the largest class of line of battle ships. The average duration of these
vast machines, when employed, is computed to be fourteen years. It is
supposed, that all the full grown oaks now in Scotland would not build
two ships of the line.
_Quarterly Journal of Agriculture_.
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