208 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



but as the inhabitants within a forest generally had 

 customary rights which were considered irreconcile- 

 able with much improvement, very little young tim- 

 ber was produced. Within the last twenty years, 

 some of the most extensive of these ancient appen- 

 dages of the crown have been disafforested that is, 

 a part has been assigned to the inhabitants of the 

 district, and the other part has been inclosed by the 

 crown. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests 

 have important duties to perform, and not the least 

 important is that of providing a proper succession 

 of timber for building ships. We have seen a calcu- 

 lation, in which it is shewn that a first-rate ship of 

 the line contains three thousand loads of timber, and 

 that this quantity could not be grown on a less sur- 

 face than fifty acres. To maintain, therefore, an 

 abundant supply of timber fit for naval purposes, is 

 not an easy or a trivial matter. 



At the time when Gilpin published his " Forest 

 Scenery," about thirty years ago, it was considered 

 that eleven forests had alone preserved their rights, 

 out of seventy-seven which are enumerated in an 

 account of the land revenues of the crown, published 

 by Mr. St. John. These eleven were Windsor, 

 Waltham, Dean, Rockingham, Whittlewood, Salcey, 

 Sherwood, Whichwood, New-forest, Bere, and Wal- 

 mer. Of these the greater number, as we have al- 

 ready stated, have now been disafforested. The cruel 

 and iniquitous usurpations called forest law, which had 

 been in former times such a source of oppression to 

 the people, have long since fallen into disuse, 

 although, till within these few years, some of the 

 forms of those laws were kept up, particularly in the 

 New-forest and the forest of Dean. The principle 

 of these despotic laws, according to Manwood, a legal 

 writer on the subject, was this: " It is allowed to 

 our sovereign lord the king, in respect of his con- 



