PLANTING OUT THE COMMON -RIGHT. 295 



that on the hills the best timber flourishes. I do not 

 mean to say that there are not some flats the nature 

 of the soil in which will produce a good oak-tree; but 

 I speak generally, and am fully convinced that the 

 hills are the places for enclosures. Well, then, on 

 such a soil as the New Forest is chiefly made of, can 

 it pay the Crown, in the face of the present importa- 

 tion of foreign timber, to enclose and plant, — bearing 

 in mind that, to keep forest-cattle and ponies out of 

 the enclosure, a fence must be maintained nearly as 

 expensive as that wliich used to keep out the deer ? 

 I am sure that the Crown will lose by an}^ such 

 attempt. By greater economy of labour, and by 

 stopping entirely the system of peculation and rob- 

 bery hitherto carried on, a better face may be put on 

 the returns ; but nothing near so good a one as might 

 have been achieved by judicious management under 

 former circumstances. We will say that, by planting, 

 the Crown will get rid of some of the common-right 

 (I take that to be an idea that is in the mind of the 

 Commission); also that, by the refusal to admit the 

 run of milch cows, they starve out the poor, and get 

 rid, in the event of a general enclosure, of the de- 

 mand made in lieu of their kine: still I maintain that 

 the forest soil, by planting or by cultivation, — well 

 done by, as the plantations are under Mr. Cumber- 

 batch, — acknowledging as little common-right as 

 possible, can never be made to return any remune- 

 ration for the immense amount of labour which will 

 be exhausted upon it. As to the sporting prospects 

 in black game and pheasant, the newly cut drains, 

 and their extent in the new enclosures, will do more 

 to deteriorate the number of those birds than the 

 act postponing all shooting till the first of October 



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