242 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
the building of dozens of new ships led to an acute timber
shortage. By the end of the war practically all the native
woods had been stripped of timber suitable for the Navy and
large importations of Baltic fir were made. The Royal Society
of Arts in 1759 offered gold and silver medals for the largest
plantations of trees and by continuing to do this till the end of
the century encouraged the planting of millions of trees. The
Navy Board reported to the Admiralty in 1768 the difficulty
they had encountered in obtaining timber and requested that
steps should be taken to rectify this. Three years later a
Parliamentary Committee considered the subject in detail, and
found that practically no native great timber or compass pieces
were obtainable and that the royal forests were almost worthless
for naval supplies.
The Admiralty followed this by restricting the tonnage of
the East India Company's shipping to prevent competition for
larger timber. They also ordered that a three years' supply
be maintained at all times in the dockyards, and by importing
a large quantity of oak from the Baltic broke up for a time
the timber monopoly6 which was interfering with the supply.
This was the first time that extensive use was made of foreign
oak, large cargoes being obtained from Stettin, Bremar and
Rostock. A few ships were built entirely of this timber,
but it was mainly used for the great repairs of ships hastily
constructed during the war with unseasoned wood which had
since rotted. When Lord Sandwich visited the ships in reserve
at Chatham in 1771 masses of fungus had to be dug out before
the timbers could be viewed. Under these circumstances the
timber used for repairs rotted rapidly, and the decay was
attributed to the use of "Stettin oak." The supply on hand
was used up by 1785 and no further imports were made until
the beginning of the next century. The ship which figured
most prominently in Parliamentary discussions was the Mars,
which was repaired with Stettin timber at a cost of £26,000—
as much as she would have cost building new from the stocks.
After two and a half years she was unfit for service and struck
off the lists. The Thunderer, unfortunately, was sent to sea
and perished.
6 There was always trouble from monopolies and trusts. Even in 1860 the naval timber
contracts were in the hands of two or three magnates who were able to dictate their own terms.