60 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



score ; and who published not a few most graphic sketches 

 of the forest scenery. 



" These woods afford excellent feeding for hogs, which 

 are led in the autumn season into many parts of the 

 forest, but especially among the oaks and beeches of 

 Soldre Wood to fatten on mast. It is among the rights 

 of the forest-verderers to feed their hogs in the forest 

 during the pasturage month, as it is called, which com- 

 mences about the end of September, and lasts six weeks. 

 For this privilege they pay a trifling acknowledgment to 

 the Steward's Court at Lyndhurst. The word pannage 

 was the old term for the money thus collected. 



" The method of treating hogs at this season of migra- 

 tion, and of reducing a large herd of these unmanageable 

 brutes to perfect obedience and good government, is 

 curious. 



" The first step the swineherd takes is to investigate 

 some close sheltered part of the forest, where there is a 

 conveniency of water, and plenty of oak or beech-mast, 

 the former of which he prefers when he can have it in 

 abundance. He fixes next on some spreading tree, round 

 the bole of which he wattles a slight circular fence of the 

 dimensions he wants, and covering it roughly with boughs 

 and sods, he fills it plentifully with straw or fern. 



Having made this preparation, he collects his colony 

 among the farmers, with whom he commonly agrees for a 

 shilling a head, and will get together perhaps a herd of 

 five or six hundred hogs. Having driven them to their 

 destined habitation, he gives them a plentiful supper of 

 acorns and beech-mast, which he had already provided, 

 sounding his horn during the repast. He then turns them 

 into the litter, where, after a long journey and a hearty 

 meal, they sleep deliciously. 



The next morning he lets them look a little around 

 them shews them the pool or stream where they may 

 occasionally drink leaves them to pick up the offals of the 

 last night's meal, and as evening draws on gives them 

 another plentiful repast under the neighbouring trees, 



