5-10 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Grazing complaints. Sheep were allowed only on certain forests, 

 and then only at certain periods in the history of those particular for- 

 ests. At the Domesday survey there was a large number of sheep in 

 the parishes embraced within the forest of Essex. The old Norman 

 laws distinctly forbade sheep pasturing in forests without a special 

 license or permit. The reason usually given for this restriction, as 

 stated in a Seventeenth Century action at law, was because "of the 

 dislike which the Redd and fallow Deare doe naturallie take to the sent 

 and smelle of the sheepe ; as also for that the sheepe do undereate the 

 Deare and hurt and spoyle the coverte, and thereby prejudice and 

 wrong Deare both in their feeding and layer." These statements 

 were, however, flatly denied by the other side in this controversy, who 

 said that "dayly experience proveth the contrary ; and that it is an 

 usual thing to see a deare and a sheepe feed together in one quillet of 

 ground, even upon one mole-hill together." (National Forest officers 

 will recognize a familiar ring to this !) 



Grazing trespass. The agistment rolls of Dartmoor Forest in 1571- 

 72, which had previously been confined to cattle and horses, include a 

 considerable number of sheep, in flocks ranging from 10 to 300. The 

 free-holders of Needwood Forest, in 1680, decided that sheep found 

 pasturing in a forest were to be forfeited and $3 a day per head was to 

 be imposed. The old forest records have a curious classification of 

 sheep: wethers (multones), ewes (oves or oves matrices), 2-year-olds 

 (bidentes), hogs or male 1-year olds (hogastri), gimmers, female 

 sheep from first to second shearing (jercie), and lambs. 



The turning out of goats even in the wildest parts of a forest was 

 imlawful, except in very restricted areas, under a special permit. By 

 tainting the pasture they eflfectually drove out the deer. The Scottish 

 law of the forest provided that if goats were found for the third time 

 in a forest the forester was to hang one of them by the horns on a 

 tree ; while if a fourth time, he was to kill one and leave its entrails in 

 the place, as a notice that a goat had been found in that spot. Certain 

 stray goats found in the Forest of Mara, Cheshire, in 1271, were for- 

 feited to the master forester. No fewer than 56 persons were arrested 

 and brought before the court of Epping Forest in 1323-24 for keeping 

 goats in the forest contrary to law. When Henry III was at Stamford. 

 in 1229, he was waited on by a body of men from Kingsclif? and sur- 

 rounding townships, who complained bitterly that Hugh de Neville, the 

 master forester of Rockingham Forest, and his rangers refused to 

 permit them to allow their goats on the Forest of ClitT, according to 



