AND ROBERT MARSHAM. 279 



You may borrow it, as I have done. This curious survey will 

 inform you, from the best authority, of all the circumstances 

 respecting the advantages, usages, abuses, &c. of our Forest 

 of Alice Holt, & Wolmer. Here you will see, that the Forest 

 now consists of 8694 acres, 107 of which are in ponds ; that 

 the present timber is estimated at 60,000 ; that it is almost 

 all of a size, & about 100 years old ; that it is shamefully 

 abused by the neighbouring poor, who lop it, & top it as they 

 please ; that there is no succession because all the bushes are 

 destroyed by the commoners around ; that y r old favourite 

 Oak, the Grindstone Oak, is estimated at 27 loads of timber ; 

 that the peat cut in Wolmer is prodigious ; in the year 1788 

 in one walk 942 loads ; & in another walk the same year 423 

 loads, besides heath, & fern; & in the same year 935,000 

 turves; &c. &c. &c. Lord Stawell is the Lieutenant, or 

 Grantee, whose lease expires in 1811, as I have said in my 

 book. That Nobleman did me the honour to call on me a 

 morning or two ago, & sat with me two hours : he brought 

 me a white wood-cock, milk white all over except a few spots. 



My friend at Bramshot place, where I measured the great 

 pollard oaks, & Sycamore last summer, has got a great range 

 of chesnut-paling ; I shall tell him what Mr. Kent says 

 respecting timber of that sort. The rain with us in 1791 

 was 44 in. 93 hund. : upwards of 8 inches of which fell in 

 November ! the rain of the present year has been consider- 

 able. Our indications of spring this year are thus : Jan. 19. 

 winter-aconite blows : Jan. 21. Hepaticas blow. Jan. 29. 

 Snowdrop blows : 31. Hasels : Feb. 4. Crocus b. : 13. brim- 

 stone butter-fly; 21. yellow wagtail appears. 26. Humble bee: 

 March 16. daffodil blows, and Apricot: 19. peaches, & necta- 

 rines. I have read BoswelVs Johnson with pleasure. As to 

 Bishop Home I knew him well for near 40 years : he has 

 often been at my House. Stillingfleet, I see, wrote his 

 Calendar of Flora at your house: He speaks in high terms of 

 the hospitable treatment that he experienced at Stratton. 



Wonderful is the regularity observed by nature ! I have 

 often remarked that the smallest willow wren, (see my Book) 

 called here the Chif-chaf from it's two loud sharp notes, is 



