36 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
woods. The position is, however, curiously inverted. As by the 
old forest laws no subject might cut woods, even on his own Jand, 
within the “regard of the forest” for fear of interfering with the 
prerogative of the Crown, so now the Crown may not clear timber 
‘on its own land for fear of interference with the pleasure of the 
subject! Even the cutting of a few decayed trees will generally 
provoke attacks in the newspapers, and assertions that the law is 
being contravened! And as in ancient days no man might erect 
a house or building on his land, so now an enclosure of any kind, 
even the smallest, made by the Crown upon its own land, is held 
to be contrary to the latest law upon the subject, and the repre- 
sentatives of the commoners watch jealously for an occasion to 
put the letter of the law in force against it. Thus to set four 
hurdles around a group of young trees that are being destroyed 
by the cattle, or to protect a spring of water from pollution by a 
fence, would be held to be a heinous offence against modern 
forest law, just as in former days a man might “lose life or 
member” for the like offence. A village or a house may be 
reduced to the extremest danger for lack of a supp!y of water or 
for the means to drain its premises, where the necessary land can 
only, by reason of the circumstances, be found in the adjoining 
forest; but it may perish from epidemic disease before it can, 
save by the costly intervention of Parliament, obtain so much as 
one rod of waste land from whence to draw a supply of unpolluted 
water, or on to which to convey out of harm’s way its accumu- 
lating sewage. Nay, even in cases where the aid of Parliament 
has been sought, opposition has sprung up to prevent dwellers in 
this Forest from obtaining those advantages which they would 
readily obtain if they lived outside the verge. In this way we 
have a reproduction of the ancient hardships of the old forest law, 
such as were found intolerable in the days of Magna Charta, and 
may be said to have reverted to the condition of affairs that pre- 
vailed six centuries ago, both in sylvicultural as well as in other 
matters. What the next turn of the wheel may bring it is 
impossible to foretell; but it is to be hoped that the reaction from 
the present state of affairs may not, as on former occasions, 
be too great a one, and will be only such as may remedy the 
existing evils, and may tend to preserve the beauties as well 
as the usefulness, in all respects, of this magnificent national 
inheritance. 
To the student of arboriculture the New Forest will always be 
