236 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



By an ancient law of some nations, he forfeited his hand 

 who beheaded a tree without leave of the owner. 



In the Duke of Luxemburg's dominions, no farmer 

 was permitted to fell a tree, without he could make it 

 appear that he had planted another. Lewis XIV. of 

 France would permit no oak trees to be cut, to whom- 

 ever they might belong, till his surveying officer had 

 marked them out : nor could they be felled beyond such 

 a circuit as was sufficiently fenced in by him who 

 bought them ; and then no cattle were allowed to be put 

 in, till the seedlings which sprung out of the ground 

 were perfectly out of danger. 



Mr M c William reports: " By a law of our King Ina it 

 was enacted, that if anyone set fire to a wood, he should be 

 punished beside paying a fine of three pounds (an immense 

 sum in those days): and for those who clandestinely cut, of 

 which the very sound of the axe was to be sufficient convic- 

 tion, for every tree he should be mulcted thirty shillings. 

 For a tree so felled, under the shadow of which thirty hogs 

 could stand, the offender was to be mulcted three pounds.* 

 If any one cut down a standing tree so as to cross the way, 

 or bore away a bough or branch, for each misdemeanour 

 he was to forfeit to the king one hundred shillings." 



* Clerk's Doomsday, p. 3. 



