294 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



Instead of the rich green forest that used to mantle 

 in gold in May and June in its ferns and broom, a 

 barren expanse was everywhere to be seen, and not a 

 deer nor a bird about it : — 



" Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen ; 

 Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd the lively gi-een : 

 No bird, except as bird of passage, flew ; 

 No bee was heard to hum, no dove to coo ; 

 No stream, as amber smooth, as amber clear, 

 Was seen to glide, or heard to murmer here." 



And now, reader, let us ask to what good end all 

 this devastation and destruction of animal life leads, 

 and what advantages are likely to be attained ; cer- 

 tainly no advantages for the poor, that we may be 

 quite sure of. I never knew an extensive measure of 

 landed improvement, as the saying goes, but the poor 

 always went to the wall. In the first place, with the 

 value of common-rights owned by the local public, the 

 forest never could remunerate the Crown for the 

 trouble and cost of an enclosure. 



The oak that grows on much of the New Forest 

 now is not fit for shipbuilding, and the stag-headed 

 nature of the dwarf trees that ornament the low-lands 

 proves that there is not a depth of clay sufficient to 

 nourish such a tap root as would bring an oak to per- 

 fection. Draining will do much for copsewood, but 

 all the drainins: in the world will not remove a sub- 

 soil of shingle or sand, or change a rock to clay. In 

 the new plantation lately made near Brockenhurst, 

 stand, or stood, several dwarf and stag-headed oak 

 trees, as warnings to the planter ; and, at the same 

 time, frowning over his attempt to wood the lawns, 

 are the high trees on the hills, planted there by our 

 forefathers ; and throughout the forest it will be seen 



