( 39 ) 



villages, or townfliips, as was the pradlice in the 

 moft remote ages, and when the fyftem of open, 



or 



Crown many years fince, to the anceftors of the Montagu family to disforcft it, and 

 to convert it into a chafe ; the latter, it is prefumed, was once a part of 5alcey foreft, 

 and has been disforefled likewife. 



Geddin^ton Ciba/e, is {uppokd to contain about 14CO acres, of which 'perhaps 1200 

 acres are woodland, the remainder confifls of lawns, plains, ridings and viftas. The 

 whole is now the joint property of his Grace the Duke of Buccleugh, and the Right 

 Honourable Earl Beaulieu, fubjeiS to a commonage at a ilated time of the year, viz. 

 from May-day to about Martinmas, for the adjoining townfliips. Deer are kept in it ; 

 and it is in every refped managed like the foreft woods, as to fencini> out the deer and 

 commoners cattle from that part which is annually cut. The woodland is divided into 

 18 parts or fales ; in one of which the underwood is cut, and a fail of timber made 

 every year. It is afterwards fenced in for 7 years, (vi-z. 4 years from the deer, and 7 

 from the cattle) ; fo that there are always 14 parts out of 18 open to the former, and 

 II parts out of 18 open to the latter, befides the plains, ridings and viftas, a fmall part 

 of which only are at any time included within the fence of the parts which are cut. 

 Although there is at this time a valuable ilock of oak timber in this chafe, principally 

 confining of trees of a large dze, and which have been the growth of ages; yet per- 

 haps this extenfive and valuable track of woodland exhibits at this moment the moft 

 ftriking and lamentable inftance of the evil and pernicious confequences that muft ine- 

 vitably attend property circumftanced as the foreft and chafe woods are. The depre- 

 dations and ravages committed by the deer and cattle upon the young fprigs and coppices, 

 at fo early an age, not only prevent even the fmalleft poflibility of obtaining a regular 

 fucceffion of oak timber, but caufe a daily diminution in the growth of the under- 

 wood. The injury fuftained by the deer being admitted into the young fpring wood ia 

 the firft inftance, is very confiderable ; but that injury is fmall indeed, when compared 

 to the deftruclive havock made by the devouring jaws of a herd of hungry cattle, ad- 

 mitted into the young coppice juft as the leaves have begun to appear, and at a 

 feafon of the year when it fome times happens they have juft furvived a ftate of fa- 

 mine, the confequence of a want of fufficient fodder, in a hard and fevere winter. All 

 the townfhips uiing a commonage in thefe woods (except one) are in an open field 

 ftate, and no attention is paid by the occupiers to the defcription of cattle bred and 

 reared, which are of the moft inferior kind, and which, in confequence of the inability 

 of the occupier of an open field farm to procure a fuiliciency of food for their fupport 

 in the winter feafon, are reduced to an extreme ftate of Jeaimefs and poverty at the 

 time they are turned into tlie woods, when whole herds of them rufli forward lika a tor- 

 rent, and every thing that is vegetable and within their reach, inevitably falls a facri- 

 ilce to their voracious and devouring appetite. Under thefe circiimftances it is not at all 

 furprifing that contagious maladies are frequently the fatal confequence ; to which caufe a 



confiderable 



