Wind energy was one of the driving forces that made civilizing possible from its beginnings up until mid-to-late 1800’s. It is wind that filled the sails of all those merchant ships trading back-and-forth, things as varied as pepper, ice and slaves. It is wind that propelled every navy in the world so they could carry on wars. The other energy sources were human and animal muscle and water wheels in streams. Men provided the muscle to fight the wars, mine the mines, dig the ditches, and all that other man-and-woman-killing labor. A good percentage of those doing this work were slaves taken in all those wars throughout history. Animals pulled the plows and wagons and everything else that could be done cheaper by animals than a human-person slave. Not really good times for most people and animals.
Half way through the 1600’s an energy crisis began to develop. There was a scarcity of trees suitable to make ship masts. It took about two thousand mature oak trees, that would be roughly 50 acres of good oak woods, to make a ship. Europe had been building ships for a lot of centuries and the oak forests were hurting, but the more serious problem was getting trees big enough for ships’ masts.
The masts of a big ship needed to be three feet in diameter at the base and over 100 feet tall. Ships’ masts had to have some bend and give in them and lighter weight than oak. The conifers (evergreens) were the best bet and the best place for them were the northern countries around the Baltic Sea, the Scandinavian countries had spruce trees, and a little further south there was Scotch pine, the best European woods for masts. England’s masts came from those countries, the problem was the number of trees was running low and England was always fussing (wars) with Denmark and others about shipping routes between the forests and England. To complicate matters, England wanted to have a war with France (again!) and needed to get a bunch more war ships built.
About that time, some shipbuilders began to realize that American White pine was far superior for masts than anything in Europe. White pine was bigger, lighter, stronger and more shock resistant, and there they were, directly west of England with no one to fight with over shipping routes. The Energy Crisis was solved - at least the wind part.
In 1691, King William III decided American white pines were so valuable he would issue a royal charter stating that it was illegal to cut any white pine greater than 24 inched diameter at breast height, no matter who’s land the tree was growing on, colonist’s or Native People’s. To back this up he established the “King’s Broad Arrow” policy. Agents were sent from England to mark the best trees with an arrow blazed in the bark. This was a big job, White pine grew from Connecticut all the way north into Maine. Not to worry, the head “agent” was a corrupt fellow and a long ways from the boss and not many trees got marked with a broad arrow, so, at first, this was no big deal. American loggers had been sending a few masts to England for almost 90 years by the time William III got around to making his royal charter. What was different was the King claimed these trees as his own, no mention of buying them from current land owners or the Native People who had been managing the forest for millennia. The locals pretty much ignored the King’s charter, White pines of all sizes were cut, bucked into eight foot logs for whatever purpose and if a mast size tree could be fell so it was close to a river and easily transported to English shipbuilders, they did it. But, over the years things tightened up - more inspectors - more rules - hard feelings grew until 1776, and we all know what happened then. Yip, the “King’s Broad Arrow” policy came to an end. (Eric Rutkow, American Canopy , p 13-33)
(John Perlin, A Forest Journey, p278 - 291)
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