138 SYLVA BOOK m 



CHAPTER VI. 



Of the Laws and Statutes for the Preservation, and 

 Improvement of Woods and Forests. 



1 . 'Tis not to be passed by, that the very first law 

 we find which was ever promulg'd, was concerning 

 trees ; and that laws themselves were first 1 written 

 upon them, or tables compos'd of them ; and after 

 that establishment in Paradise, the next we meet 

 withal are as ancient as Moses ; you may find the 

 statute at large in Deut. c. 20. v. 19, 20. Which 

 though they chiefly tended to fruit-trees, even in an 

 enemies country, yet you will find a case of neces- 

 sity, only alledg'd for the permission to destroy any 

 other. 



2. To sum up briefly the laws, and civil consti- 

 tutions of great antiquity, by which Servius informs 

 us 'twas no less than capital, alienas arbores incidere ; 

 the Lex Aquilia, and those of the xn. Tabb. men- 

 tion'd by Paulus, Cujas, Julianus, and others of that 

 robe, repeated divers more. 



It was by those sacred constitutions provided, that 

 none might so much as plant trees on the confines of 

 his neighbour's ground, but he was to leave a space 

 of at the least five foot, for the smallest tree, that they 

 might not injure him with their shadow. Si arbor in 

 vicini agrum impendent, earn sublucato, &c. and if for 

 all this, any hung over farther, 'twas to be stripped 

 up fifteen foot : And this law Balduinus, Olderdorpius, 



1 The laws of Numa first cut in quernis tabulis, before they were engraven in 

 brass : See Dionysius Halicarnass., lib. 3. 



