808 FORESTS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
to protect them, and many authors of the sixteenth century ex- 
press fears of serious evils from the wasteful economy of the 
people in this respect. Harrison, in his curious chapter “ Of 
Woods and Marishes” in Holinshed’s compilation, complains 
of the rapid decrease of the forests, and adds: “ Howbeit thus 
much I dare affirme, that if woods go so fast to decaie in the 
next hundred yeere of Grace, as they haue doone and are like 
to doo in this, . . . it is to be feared that the fennie 
bote, broome, turfe, gall, heath, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling, 
dies, hassacks, flags, straw, sedge, réed, rush, and also seacole, 
will be good merchandize euen in the citie of London, where- 
unto some of them euen now haue gotten readie passage, and 
taken vp their innes in the greatest merchants’ parlours. . . . 
I would wish that I might line no longer than to sée foure 
things in this land reformed, that is: the want of discipline in 
the chureh: the couetous dealing of most of our merchants in 
the preferment of the commodities of other countries, and 
hinderance of their owne: the holding of faires and markets 
ypon the sundaie to be abolished and referred to the wednes- 
daies: and that euerie man, in whatsoeuer part of the cham- 
paine soile enioieth fortie acres of land, and vpwards, after that 
rate, either by frée deed, copie hold, or fee farme, might plant 
one acre of wood, or sowe the same with oke mast, hasell, beech, 
and suflicient prouision be made that it may be cherished and 
kept. But I feare me that I should then liue too long, and so 
long, that I should either be wearie of the world, or the world 
of me.’?.* 
* HOLINSHED, reprint of 1807, i., pp. 857, 358. It is evident from this 
passage, and from another on page 397 of the same volume, that, though sea- 
coal was largely exported to the Continent, it had not yet come into general 
use in England. It is a question of much interest, when mineral coal was first 
employed in England for fuel. I can find no evidence that it was used as a 
combustible until more than a century. after the Norman conquest. It has 
been said that. it was known to the Anglo-Saxon population, but I am ac- 
quainted with no passage in the literature of that people which proves this. 
The dictionaries explain the Anglo-Saxon word gr@fa by sea-coal. I have met 
with this word in no Anglo-Saxon work, except in the Chronicle, A.D. 852, 
