BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ARBORICULTURE OF THE NEW FOREST. 19 
farmed we have to glean from the complaints as to breaches of 
contract ; that the underwood was regularly cut, either by the 
tenant or by the Crown, is shown by the receipts for sales of this 
kind. All timber seems to have been taken for the navy. But 
the presentment as to the ‘“‘shrouding” of trees, and as to cutting 
of certain (four) oaks ‘‘ by the ground,” shows, if the woods them- 
selves did not tell the tale, that pollarding the timber trees was a 
common practice. Thus in Mark Ash, perhaps one of the oldest 
of the beech woods, we find every other tree a pollard, which 
alone shows that the wood has from its earliest days been under 
cultivation. The same thing will be found in all of the grandest 
old woods; and in the case of Ridley Wood we have the actual 
facts of its cultivation, and of the abuse of that cultivation, put 
upon record. 
As this paper will be read by those who are far more skilled 
in forestry than myself, and as I know that Burnham Beeches 
will have come under their observation, I would ask them to 
consider, having such examples as that picturesque old wood and 
of Mark Ash, as well as Ridley, Bratley, and other New Forest 
woods of the same date, before their eyes, What is really the effect 
of pollarding upon our finest forest trees? Is it not the case that 
the finest specimens of old forest scenery, as regards beech at any 
rate, are pollards? Is not the ‘“‘ Knightwood Oak” in the New 
Forest an undoubted pollard? Would these trees have attained to 
their present age in a healthy condition if they had not—for no 
motive connected with arboriculture—been thus pollarded in early 
youth? And lastly, can any experienced member of your Society 
tell us, approximately, what addition to the life of a tree may be 
given by this process and:check in its youth? 
To return, however, to my subject. It does not seem 
certain whether in the Elizabethan days the foresters relied 
wholly on natural reproduction for their crop, or whether 
they also did some planting or sowing of seed. As the 
coppices were brought regularly under cultivation, it seems 
probable that they did plant or sow, especially in those cases 
where the woods were farmed out and the tenant had to 
make as good a profit as he could in a fixed term. It is hardly 
probable that so dense a wood as is found in Mark Ash or Ridley 
would be achieved by the self-sown timber over so large an area, 
and be all of the same age; such timber would vary somewhat 
