48 ANCIENT WOODS. 



fessional notice. It was a wood held on lease by 

 a gentleman, under an ecclesiastical body, the 

 lease being for a certain number of years, renew^ 

 able upon the payment of a fine every seven years. 

 Some dissatisfaction was felt by the lessee at the 

 amount of the fines demanded, and the lease was 

 permitted to lapse, at which time the intrinsic 

 value of the stock, whether of timber or under- 

 wood, was literally nothing. The oak was all 

 gone, as it was quite natural that, with a lease so 

 framed, it should be, and the underwood, instead 

 of being usefully and beneficially occupying the 

 ground, of which it then had en fire possession, was 

 not worth the trouble of cutting ! How different 

 would have been the position of the lessors in this 

 instance, I need not say, if, during the two last 

 cycles, when the oaks were becoming very thinly 

 scattered, the underwood had been cherished, as 

 it most undoubtedly ought to have been. The 

 neighbourhood was one where there was plenty of 

 demand for the produce of woods ; the particular 

 wood referred to, would have been, on every ac- 

 count, as good a cover, and all parties would 



