24 FORESTRY IN LATER TIMES 



lands freed by the previous charters from the forest 

 laws) of England. The Statute permitted proprietors 

 owning land therein to fence their coppices against 

 deer and cattle for seven years after each felling. 

 The fear of a shortage of timber continued to exercise 

 the minds of those in power, and the Statute was 

 followed in 1543 by a " Statute of Woods." Therein 

 it was enacted that all woods throughout England 

 should be enclosed for four, six, or seven years after 

 each felling oi the coppice, according to whether the 

 rotations of the latter were under fourteen, fourteen 

 to twenty-four or over twenty-four years, and that 

 at least twelve standards her acre should be left 

 standing, or " stored " as it was called, to grow into 

 timber size. These standards were to be oak when 

 possible, or, failing oak, ash, beech, elm, or aspen, 

 these being the timbers most in demand after oak. 

 A certain age or girth was laid down for these 

 standards, which were not to be felled before reaching 

 the prescribed age or size. From this far-sighted 

 action dates the first systematic management of 

 British woods, for from it and subsequent Acts of 

 Parliament arose the practice of working the woods 

 on the sylvicultural system known as coppice with 

 standards. The standards, as we have seen, were 

 chiefly oak, beech, ash, elm, and aspen, whilst the 

 coppice or underwood consisted of oak, chestnut, 

 hazel, ash, birch, willow, etc. The working of the 

 woods in this manner gradually spread north 

 throughout Scotland, when the land was suitable, 

 and over into Ireland after the Act of 1634. 

 This system of management of the woods was in 



