[wideminded]

The forest once spanned 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares) across Nottinghamshire, but has shrunk in modern time to about 450 acres (180 hectares).

That's impossible. A lot of people on this very website have assured me that there are more trees now than there ever were.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

That's impossible. A lot of people on this very website have assured me that there are more trees now than there ever were.

It would be impossible for there to be more trees now then there ever were. So I doubt you are being accurate.

However in the United State there are a lot more trees growing now then there were in the recent past. In certain areas there are now more trees then there were anywhere from two to three hundred years ago.

Part of this is due to tree farming, part is due to trees no longer being a primary source of energy and part is due to people moving to the cities and marginal farm land returning to nature.

[SunkenCiv]

In addition to what Harmless Teddy Bear noted, the use of hydrocarbons in mechanized agriculture has both reduced the amount of land needed for cultivation (higher yields, and no more having to feed the muscle power that used to be used to till and harvest) despite the growth in population (if memory serves, US population has increased around fivefold since 1900). Land has gone back to the wild, and prior farmland and grazing areas turned into suburbs. Instead of 6 to 8 foot trunks on hemlocks and whatnot that used to grow in some places around here (the last of that was cut before WWI), the old timber we see today was planted along quiet village streets around a hundred years ago, usually before there were pipes in the street to worry about.

[ApplegateRanch]

That's impossible. A lot of people on this very website have assured me that there are more trees IN THE UNITED STATES now than there ever were in the Colonial Era.

Fixed it.