38 History of the English Landed Interest. 



reveal to us the immense care bestowed by prudent Govern- 

 ments on their woodlands. Sylviculture, in the primitive 

 days of the science, was generally practised on common and 

 waste ground, which naturally came under popular rather 

 than individual jurisdiction. Laws and Civil Constitutions 

 therefore of great antiquity contain frequent allusions to trees. 

 Thus Moses strictly forbade the destruction of fruit trees in 

 an enemy's country, and granted permission, only in cases of 

 great necessity, to destroy other varieties.^ Servius informs 

 us that it was a capital ojBfence, " alienas arbores incidere." 

 In the Lex Aquilia, the laws of the Twelve Tables, and the 

 writings of Paulus, Cujas, Julianus, etc., frequent reference to 

 arboriculture is made. Thus, nobody might plant trees on 

 the confines of his own ground without leaving a space of 

 at least five feet for even the smallest, lest their shadows 

 should damage his neighbour's property ; and if their branches 

 stretched over another's land, they had to be stripped to a 

 height of fifteen feet. By the Prsstor's edict, any impendent 

 wood was adjudged as belonging to the landed proprietor whose 

 field or fence it shaded : ^ Solon prescribed the very distances 

 at which trees could be planted. Plato deprecated the theft 

 of fruit and violation of plantations ; and the Praetors also 

 ordained that, when a boundary tree fell over the border, both 

 occupiers of the land were entitled to share its fruit.^ 



Strict regulations also governed the practice of planting 

 various trees as boundary marks ; and the situation of timber 

 in the vicinity of aqueducts, navigable rivers, and highways 

 was narrowly limited by the statutes, lest injury might be 

 occasioned to public interests. 



Turning now to the legislation and customs connected with 

 the arboriculture of this country, we find that the national 

 woodlands, whenever they bordered on inhabited clearings (such 



^ Deut. XX. 19, 20. 



* Ulpian, 1. 1, F. de Arh. Ccedend. 



* Ait praetor glandem, quae ex illius agro in tuum cadit, quomJniis illi 

 tertio quoqu3 die legere auferre liceat, vim fieri veto. Ulpian "De glaude 

 legenda." In Piin3^ 1. 16, c. 5, " glandem " is interpreted as meaning all 

 kinds of fruit besides the acorn. 



