Dr. Bret Devereaux

Athens, of course, had a large navy.

It was famous for its large navy.

You can go to Athens, you can look around Attica, you will not see an overabundance of trees.

Critically, you will not see a lot of big, straight, tall trees that are good for ship timber.

The fleets of Athens were built with timber brought from the north, mostly from Macedon and Thrace.

And Athenian colonial connections up there were very important for securing those supplies of timber for the construction of ships.

And you need a lot of timber to maintain a navy because you don't just need to build the ships, you need to maintain the ships.

You need to replace rotted boards and planks and spars break and so on.

So there is a continuing demand.

The other example I can easily think of Tolkien working with here is English, later British colonization in North America.

Where there were literally royal officials fairly early on in the 13 colonies whose job was to walk out into the forest and mark every tree that would be owned by the king for the Royal Navy.

Like, this is a good oak.

That is a good oak.

This is a good oak.

Colonists don't cut down the trees I painted a little white mark on because those belong to the crown for future shipbuilding.

Timber demands could be really considerable.

After the Danish fleet was destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars, they planted an entire forest for the purpose of securing their timber supply.

on the understanding that it would take about a century.

And I think it was in the 1970s or 1980s that the Danish Forest Service told the Danish Navy, by the way, it's ready now.

I mean, the good news is now they have a great forest, which are good for other things.