. 
22 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
However arbitrary and paternal these regulations may have 
been, they show a keen desire to preserve timber at all costs. 
In the year 1614 we find a list of regulations drawn up which 
were to be inserted in all leases for the letting of future woods in 
New Forest, among which it was provided that “all timber trees 
are to be excepted, and all saplings of oak that are likely to make 
timber, and that 12 standels be left in every acre.” 
Not very much more of special interest relating to the New 
Forest appears in the records of this reign, except a detailed 
account of the different coppices and plantations, with much fault 
found with the condition of the fences, and a note that Holmsley 
Coppice “ consisteth only of holly or holm, for the most part 
very old, and by reason that the country people have taken the 
bark off most of them to make bird-lime they are all decayed 
and dead”! 
Similar surveys took place during the reign of Charles the First, 
but more with a view to raising as much money as possible 
from the various woods than with that of expending money on 
their renewal. Troubled times arose, and the king had matters 
to attend to more engrossing than the cultivation of his woods. 
Under the Commonwealth we do not find much care bestowed on 
the Forest, and it may be concluded that great waste went on. 
Nor did this waste terminate with the accession of Charles the 
Second, for one of the most curious of the State papers relating to 
this Forest is that in which Charles is “informed that two 
coppices—one called King’s Copse . . . the other called 
New Copse . . . and that the underwoods of the said copses 
are valued at £1292 . . . besides the trees and saplings - 
growing thereon, to be preserved for our own use. We are 
graciously pleased, upon the humble petition of Winifred Wells, 
one of the maids of honour to our dearest consort and queen, 
to give unto her the benefit of the said underwoods.. . ete., 
etc.” 
The king five years after, in 1669, did, however, decree that 
300 acres of ground should be taken for a nursery and supply of 
wood and timber, in three separate lots of 100 acres each, the 
situations of which are named in the order, It is this same 
order that provides for the “impaling and fencing of the park 
called New Park” . . . ‘for the preservation of His Majesty’s 
red deer coming out of France.” 
A commission of inquiry was again issued in the later days of 
