FOREST AND FORESTRY DEFINED. 83 



laws." It was then a legal term, and had no refer- 

 ence to natural but only to legal conditions, with 

 the royal prerogative, the right to hunt, as a basis. 

 Afforesting and disafforesting were correspondingly 

 the legal terms which denoted the placing of dis- 

 tricts under the forest ban and forest laws, or their 

 release from these restrictions. 



The forests of Dean, of Windsor, of Epping, of 

 Sherwood, and the New Forest, in England, made 

 famous by legend and history, were such districts, 

 set aside by the Norman kings for their pastime. 1 



The care which, under the forest laws, was 

 bestowed upon the woodlands by special officers 

 called foresters, first for the sake of preserving the 

 game, then for the sake of continuity of wood sup- 

 plies, and the later release of the fields from the 

 application of these laws, no doubt had a tendency 

 to restrict the term forest again to the woodlands 

 alone, until finally, with the decadence of the regal 

 prerogative, the old meaning wore away entirely, 

 and it referred no longer to a legal but to a 

 natural condition, land covered with wood growth 



1 It is interesting to note that this mediaeval conception and use 

 of the terms lingered until nearly the present day, as evidenced by 

 a suit at court, decided in 1862, instituted by one of the dukes of 

 Athole in Scotland, who hold extensive mountain districts either in 

 their own right or as " foresters " for the crosvn, in virtue of which 

 one of them claimed the power of preventing his neighbor, the 

 Laird of Lude, from killing deer on his own lands, and the right to 

 enter the Laird's lands himself for the purpose. The courts decided 

 adversely. 



