Oct. 6. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



269 



■ Some making of havock, without any wit, 

 Make many poore soules without fier to sit. 



"If frost do continue, this lesson doth well, 

 For comfort of cattle, the fewell to fell ; , 

 From every tree, the superfluous bowes. 

 Now prune for thy neate, thereupon to go browes. 



"In pruning and trimming all maner of trees, 

 Keserve to cache cattle their properly fees ; 

 If snow do continue, shepe hardly that fare, 

 Crave mistle ^ and ivye for them for to spare. 



" Now lop for thy fewell old poUenger 2 growen. 

 That hinders the come or the grasse to be niowen ; . 

 In lopping and felling save edder^ and stake. 

 Thine hedgis as needith, to mend or to make. 



" In lopping old locham, for feare of mishap. 

 One bough stay unlopped, to cherish the sap. 

 The second yeare after, then boldly ye may. 

 For dripping his fellowes, that bough cut away. 



" Lop popplar, and salow, elme, maple, and prye, 

 Well saved from cattle, till somer to lye ; 



• So far as in lopping, their tops ye do flinge. 

 So far, without planting, j'ong coppice will springe." 



In a book called the Farmer s Kalendar, date 

 1771, I find the following : 



" I do not in this lialendar mean to treat of the planting 

 trees, as that is the business rather of landlords and gen- 

 tlemen than farmers; but with the aquatics the case is 

 different. If any part of the fences of the farm are 

 situated in low, wet, or boggy places, it is a chance if 

 thorns prosper well. The best method of repairing them 

 is to plant trunchious of willow, sallOw, alder, &c., for 

 hedge stakes, and also along the bank for plushing down 

 afterwards, which will insure the tenant a great plenty of 

 firing ; and in such situations, and waste spots that cannot 

 well be better improved, it will answer extremely well to him 

 to set longer trunchions for pollard trees ; they v}Ui repay the 

 expense with great profit." 



From Woodfall's Law of Landlord and Tenant, 

 6th edition, p. 229., I extract the following : 



" It has been held to be a good custom, that copy- 

 holders in fee shall have the loppings of pollengers, and 

 the lord cannot, in such case, cut the trees down, for that 

 would deprive the copyholder of the future loppings 

 (pollengers or pollards are such trees as have been usually 

 cropped, therefore distinguished from timber trees)." 



From all which it may be infei-red that pollards 

 are of ancient date, that they have been deliber- 

 ately cultivated to furnish periodical growths for 

 the use of the tenant in providing him with fuel, 

 poles, hedgestakes, &c., and that such periodical 

 growths have anciently been considered as be- 

 longing to the tenant and not the landlord. 



1 may remark, by the way, that Dr. Johnson 

 appears to have been in error in this matter ; he 



1 Query mistletoe, said by Parkinson in his Herhale, 

 ed. 1640, "to grow rarely on okes with us, but on sundrie 

 others, as well timber as fruite trees plentifully, in woods, 

 groves, and the like in all the land." 



2 Pollenger and pollard are synonymous. Bailey's Dic- 

 tionary, ed. 1731. 



3 Edder, query « binder." Eder breche is the trespass 

 of hedge breaking. The header or binder, th« top of the 

 hedge. 



No. 310.] 



defines pollenger "brushwood," and quotes Tussey 

 as his authority : 



" Lop for the fewel old pollenger grown. 

 That hinder the come or the grasse to be mown." 



Misled by Tusser recommending the pollenger to 

 be lopped, that it may not hinder the corn or 

 grass from being mown, he appears to have 

 imagined the obstacle was on the ground, and not 

 to have reflected that though the shade of a 

 heavy-lopped pollard might have injured the 

 crops, or the fallen branches, if left, impeded the 

 mower, corn was not very likely to have been 

 sown amongst brushwood or meadow grass, to 

 have co-existed with so overbearing a neighbour, 

 or that, if it did, lopping would not have re- 

 moved the impediment to the free action of th? 

 scythe. " 



I am afraid this is very tiresome, and can hardly 

 hope you will read it, but I beg to subscribe 

 myself. 



General, 

 Your obedient and very humble servant, 



William Sblbt. 



A POSSIBLE TEST OF AUTHORSHIP. 



(Vol. xii., p. 181.) 



The worthy Professor, and other correspon- 

 dents who take an interest in this subject, may 

 find some pleasure in looking over the subjoined 

 table ; in -i preparation of which, the experi- 

 ment proposed in the above communication has 

 to some extent been made, and, even partial as it 

 is, the results are somewhat interesting. The 

 2000 words from each author are taken consecu- 

 tively (except in one instance), and are divided 

 into separate five-hundreds ; simply for the pur- 

 pose of allowing comparison to be made between 

 the lesser numbers in each individual case, or i» 

 the various examples : 



The peculiarities of " Sam Slick's " orthography 

 are certainly very manifest in No. 8. ; and it will 

 be seen how nearly in this, and in many of the 

 examples, the result of even one 500 woi;d? 

 agrees with another. Where there is any re- 



