BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ARBORICULTURE OF THE NEW FOREST. 21 
navy, who have stripped them of the fine oaks suitable for ship- 
building. But this will not account for the total absence of 
beech from among the oaks of some of the woods, and as we 
know from daily observation that that is not the mode in which 
self-sown woods will spring up in this district if left to them- 
selves, it is impossible to resist the conviction that in certain 
cases great care was taken either to plant or to sow (probably 
the latter) oak alone, or else to eradicate the beech that spon- 
taneously sprang up with it. In either case, the hand of man 
is clear, and the theory of the ‘primeval forest” becomes 
untenable. 
Like most of his countrymen, James the First of England, the 
Sixth of Scotland, was a careful forester. Much attention was paid 
to the New Forest in his reign. In addition to a survey of all 
trees fit for timber which he caused to be made, to which allusion 
will be made later, strict regulations were made both for the 
management of the coppices and plantations, which, with an eye 
to the main chance, the king was careful to farm out to the best 
advantage, and also for the preservation of the young timber 
trees springing up among them. Among the orders, we find the 
first definite mention of ‘‘ ploughing of the land for raising of 
new woods,” and this is naturally followed by an account of the 
cost of gathering acorns, and of that of planting them ‘‘ by men’s 
hands,” which would seem to indicate some method of dibbling. 
Great stress is laid upon the necessity of keeping the coppices 
well fenced from cattle and deer, and it would seem that in these 
ancient days more care was taken to exclude all cattle from the 
- enclosures than is admitted to be necessary now—by the owners 
of the cattle at least! A proclamation issued in the sixth year 
of James I., after setting forth that ‘‘ great spoils and devastations 
are committed within our forests, parks, and chases”. . . “we 
therefore have endeavoured to take course to stop the said abuses, 
and to work the means not only of the better preservation of our 
said woods in time to come, but of a present multiplication and 
increase of wood to all ages, and to the end that our care may 
appear to the preservation and increase of timber as well to others 
as to ourselves . . . we do straightly command and charge 
all our loving subjects in general that im their own woods they 
presume not hereafter to defraud the true meaning of our statutes 
by cutting and felling the young stores when they usually fell 
their underwoods.” 
