102 The /ournal of Forestry. 



putation 3,745 loads of timber, square measure, and only 194 scrubbed, 

 dotard, or defective trees of above 30 feet each, besides browse trees, 

 cf which there were 8,266 oak trees, containing by computation 

 7,338 loads square measure, and 8,914 browse ashes ; so that the 

 timber fit for the navy, according to this survey, was little more than 

 one-tenth part of the quantity fit for naval use in 1608. This 

 falling off was not caused by felling during the last century, but to 

 the ruinous effects of a mixture of opposite interests in the same 

 property, and of the system of mismanagement. Some of the trees 

 called browse trees, for instance, were found to be large and sound 

 trees, fit for the service of the navy. These were lopped to feed the 

 deer, and it is a significant fact that the salaries of the lieutenant and 

 keepers were defrayed chiefly from the sale of browsewood. Again, 

 the warden or deputy warden had the privilege of cutting bushes and 

 underwood in the plains, open ridings, and lawns, and a better plan 

 to prevent a succession of young trees could not be devised, as they 

 need the protection of the bushes to prevent injuries from deer and 

 cattle. The poundage of five per cent, on all moneys coming to the 

 hands of the Surveyor-General, and another poundage on the ex- 

 penditure of those moneys, made it to the interest of that officer to 

 fell the timber and to promote and enhance the expense and repairs 

 and works in the forest. The whole of the actual business of the 

 forest used to be transacted by deputies, and these deputies not acting 

 upon oath, the sales of the wood and timber being wholly under their 

 direction, without any adequate check or control, and tlie deputies 

 themselves being the buyers of the wood and timber sold by them- 

 selves, it needs no further comment to explain the difference in the 

 above figures. These deputies must have had profitable berths, for 

 after they had bought the timber of themselves, they undertook the 

 execution of works and repairs, and were paid according to estimates 

 prepared by themselves. Nor did the keepers go without their 

 pickings, for they took the stools or roots of the trees felled, which 

 must have put a considerable sum a year in their pockets, although 

 such stools were the undoubted property of the Crown. In short, 

 the administration of the forest seems to have been a merry-go-round 

 of unblushing knavery. It was probably owing to the distance of 

 this forest from the dockyards and the expense of carriage that no 

 timber was brought from it for the use of the navy before 1781. The 

 land carriage to the river Lea at Hertford, to which the naval timber 

 from Salcey was generally conveyed, is fifty miles, and the whole 

 expense of land and water carriage was £3 18s. per load square 

 measure. This journey to the river Lea occupied four days, two 

 going and two returning. The oak trees were divided into nine 

 classes : 1. Wavers, being saplings of ten to fifteen or twenty years* 



