258 The Journal of Forestry. 



cutting and disposal of the timber, and the accoinit was declared to be 

 even. It is worthy of remark, that in order to produce that exact 

 equality between the charge and discharge of the account, the 

 Surveyor- General charged no less than 800 days attendance of two 

 deputies at 4s. each per day, in the execution of the warrant for the 

 sale of the timber. Another article in the accounts of this forest, 

 may, perhaps, also observe notice. On an application from the Duke 

 of Newcastle, in the year 1709, a very broad riding was cut through 

 the whole of Berkland wood, from one end to the other, and the 

 timber, which was valued at £1,500, was given to his Grace, but all 

 the charges attendant on the fall were defrayed by the crown, and 

 amounted £118 17s. 2d. 



Again, the four verderers claimed five trees yearly, and the steward 

 of the Forest Courts a like number, and were accustomed to take 

 their choice. But as a standing tree may be unsound, and yet present 

 no outward sign of decay, these guardians of the public property 

 allowed those with whom they were in treaty to bore the finest look- 

 ing trees until they come to one to their liking, which practice was 

 hardly conducive to the health of the rejected ones. While the red 

 deer were kept in the forest, the farms were worth very little, and 

 the farmers were obliged to watch and blow horns, and keep fires by 

 night to keep them out of the corn fields, but the farms rose considerably 

 in value' after they were destroyed. Plans were at different times pro- 

 posed, during the eighteenth century, for replenishing the forest with 

 deer and preserving them, but they had no other effect than bringing 

 expense upon the crown and advantage to the proposers, without any 

 increase in the deer. In 1703, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Warden 

 of the forest of Sherwood, represented, that for the preservation of the 

 deer and increase of the game, it was absolutely necessary a com- 

 petent allowance should be made, not only for the maintenance and 

 support of a sufficient number of keepers, which he conceived could 

 not be less than six, and their deputies, but also for providing hay 

 and pasture ground for the fothering and support of the deer, and, in 

 consequence of that representation, he obtained a warrant for £366 

 per annum, to be paid by the surveyor-general of the woods north of 

 Trent, out of moneys arising from the sale of windfalls, and of dotard 

 and decayed trees, and to be distributed by his Grace in the manner 

 proposed, and that payment was continued until Michaelmas, 1707. 

 In 1709, the Duke obtained by letters patent licence to make a park 

 within the forest, to contain at least 3,000 acres of his own land, and 

 in consideration of thus extinguishing the rent of such a quantity of 

 his own lands, and of finding hay and pasture ground, not only for the 

 deer to be kept in the said park, but for those in the forest also, and of 

 paying all the keepers both in the park and the forest, and defraying 



