§ MR. W. H. SMITHasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If there is any account of the expenditure on the woods and plantations in the New Forest during the last fifty years, and of the revenue actually realized from the sale of timber and trees during that period?
§ MR. COURTNEYSir, the right hon. Gentleman is well aware how complicated a state of things exists in the New Forest. Efforts have, however, been made to discriminate the receipts and expenditure properly attributable to the woods and plantations there from those belonging to other matters. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to do this for the years before 1853; but the Commissioners of Woods inform me that in the last 30 years the Crown may roughly be said to have realized a profit of between £4,000 and £5,000 annually from the 24,000 acres of the New Forest which are under timber, or less than 5s. an acre. The greater portion of this profit arose in the earlier years of the period.