We begin our story with one of the earliest maps we have been working with.

Sherwood Forest Nottinghamshire, late 14th or early 15th century from the archives of the Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle.

One of the fixed points in the study of Sherwood is the creation of deer parks. This map clearly shows Clipston Deer Park as a circular park with a wooden pale fence in the top left hand quarter.

By Stuart C. Reddish & Lynda Mallett

Duke of Portland planting plan.
Copyright The Welbeck Estate

We are currently working with this amazing new find supplied by the Welbeck Estate. A fine and detailed planting plan laid out by the Duke of Portland. This plan is accompanied by a document setting out each planted compartment with all the details of how the ground was prepared and what trees were planted and when. We are at present surveying the Birklands trees to see if we can find any trees that were planted by the Duke between 1821 and 1853.

Part of a page from the planting plan. Copyright Welbeck Estate.

The above references in the Duke's planting plan to the many bushels of bones used to prepare the ground in Sherwood Forest relates to poor soil in this part of Nottinghamshire.
Farmers have known for centuries that soil doesn't necessarily contain all of the nutrients that plants need. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew that manure spread on fields helped crop production immensely. Arab civilizations collected the written knowledge about farming. Somewhere along the line, farmers realized that ground up bones provided nutrients. By 1815, England was importing so many bones for bone meal that people on the Continent starting complaining: "England is robbing all other countries of their fertility. Already in her eagerness for bones, she has turned up the battlefields of Leipzig, and Waterloo, and of Crimea; already from the catacombs of Sicily she has carried away skeletons of many successive generations. Annually she removes from the shores of other countries to her own the manorial equivalent of three million and a half of men... Like a vampire she hangs from the neck of Europe." taken from the website http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/crops_04.html