CHAP, vi S Y L V A 147 



tender and improvable woods, should not admit of 

 cattle by any means, till they were quite grown out 

 of reach ; the statutes which connive at it, in favour 

 of custom, and for the satisfying of a few clamorous 

 and rude commoners, being too indulgent ; since it is 

 very evident, that less than a 14 or 15 years enclosure, 

 is in most places too soon ; and our most material 

 trees would be of infinite more worth and improve- 

 ment, were the standards suffer'd to grow to timber, 

 and not so frequently cut, at the next felling of the 

 wood, as the general custom is. In 22 Edw. 4. the 

 liberty arriv'd but to seven years after a felling of a 

 forest or purlieu ; and but three years before, without 

 special licence : This was very narrow ; but let us 

 then look on England as an over-grown country. 



8. Wood in parks was afterwards to be four years 

 fenced, upon felling ; and yearling colts, and calves 

 might be put into inclosed woods after two : By the 

 1 3 Eliz. five years, and no other cattle till six, if the 

 growth was under fourteen years ; or until eight, if 

 exceeding that age till the last felling : All which 

 statutes being by the Act of Hen. 8. but temporal, 

 this Parliament of Elizabeth thought fit to make 

 perpetual. 



9. Then, to prevent the destructive razing and 

 converting of woods to pasture : No wood of two 

 acres, and above two furlongs from the Mansion- 

 House, should be indulg'd : And the prohibitions are 

 good against assarts made in forests, &c. without 

 licence : The penalties are indeed great ; but how 

 seldom inflicted ? And what is now more easie, than 

 compounding for such a licence ? 



In some parts of Germany, where a single tree is 

 observed to be extraordinary fertile, a constant and 



