BETTER MANAGEMENT SUGGESTED 231 



acres of Crown oak timber were consumed. In addition to this, 

 the respectable portion of the inhabitants of Burley dared not 

 go to bed at night while that dry weather lasted, if the wind 

 set from the forest gorse to their habitations, for fear of the 

 conflagration reaching them while they were not up to put it 

 out. My ears are filled by the complaints of the poor as to 

 the hardships of the present system ; and their lamentations of 

 the loss of their milch cows no little loss, I can assure the 

 reader, to a large and youthful family. Formerly the milch 

 cows " in use " were permitted to run from the cottages in the 

 forest, while they were in milk ; now no distinction is made, and 

 all cattle must be " up " on a given day. I think it was Mr. 

 Sturges Bourne who granted the yearly run of cows in milk. 

 It is all very well to say to a cottager he must take up his cow, 

 but where or how can he afford to keep her if the run in the 

 forest is refused ? It may be, and certainly is, a valuable right 

 to the poor, and an expensive one to purchase from those in 

 possession of it in the event of a general enclosure ; and, there- 

 fore, if the Crown can prove, as I believe it can, that the poor 

 have not the run of the milch cow vested in them, if an 

 enclosure be contemplated, it is an economy to stop it ; but I 

 fearlessly say, that it is not an economy graceful to the Crown, 

 or such as a high-minded Minister would have advised. 



Now, by way of experiment, let me suppose another plan 

 had been adopted, and draw a picture of the New Forest in the 

 early part of June, as I could wish it had been kept, and to 

 which, if this Act is not found to work well, it could yet be 

 returned. Look at that cottage ! no doubt it is an encroach- 

 ment arising from a " rolling fence " and the neglect of the 

 forest officials, but the time has passed for any reclaim on the 

 part of the Crown, and honest, hard-working people, with their 

 family, live in it. Surrounded by heather, look at their row of 

 beehives, and what beautiful honey they make ! The forest 

 greensward runs up to their little garden, and, down in a swamp 

 below, there are a couple of pigs rooting for a living, while, 

 grazing close by, in full use, is a Jersey-bred or an Alderney 



