I was recently in the Netherlands and noticed it is remarkably free of forests, which led me to wonder how they got timber for their ships back in the day.
I guess there are two possible answers:
1. The reason the country is deforested is that the forests were invested in a fleet
If this is the case, I'm wondering where these large forests were, and what sort of trees the Dutch Republic used to have.
2. They got timber from somewhere else
If this is the case... from where did they get the timber? Down the Rhine from Swabia I guess could be a possibility, or maybe from Scandinavia and the Baltic, but the latter possibility begs the question of how you would transport enough without already having a very efficient navy.
I assume possibility (1) occurred either way, even if most of the wood (or maybe the best of the wood?) would have to arrive via (2). So I guess my question is more related to how extensive (2) was and from whom they purchased.