FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



The woodlands owned by private persons consist in great part of copses 

 or stored coppice, in which the standard trees have been very irregularly 

 stored, and partly also of plantations of pines, larch and firs. This form 

 of arboriculture in Hants is typical of that which has in past times ob- 

 tained throughout the greater portion of central and southern England, 

 particular attention being no doubt given to all the tracts within easy 

 reach of the naval dockyards. 



It would be difficult to fix the date when planting was first done in 

 England ; but planting for ornament certainly took place long before 

 planting for profit was ever thought of. 'A statute was passed A.D. 1307 

 and 35 Edward I., the title of which is " Ne rector arbores in cemetrio 

 prosternat." Now if it is recollected that we seldom see any other very 

 large or ancient tree in a churchyard but yews, this statute must have 

 principally related to this species of tree ; and consequently their being 

 planted in churchyards is of much more ancient date than the year i 307. '* 



Perhaps the earliest definite record for the New Forest is to be found 

 in the returns made in the sixteenth year of Henry VI. by Henry 

 Carter of Welhampton and Thomas Coke of Menestede, who were 

 appointed by letters patent of the king to cut down and sell certain 

 underwoods specified as growing in certain places and to account for 

 ' money paid for enclosing 720 perches of wood and underwood at 4d. 

 the perch . . . and in making three gates to the said enclosure with 

 hinges, hooks, hasps, staples, locks and keys bought for the gates.' A 

 further account of the same date relates to ' the sum of 59 9-f. ^.d. 

 for 72 acres 3 roods of wood and underwood sold within the bailiwick 

 of East Lynwode under the supervision of John Hampton and William 

 Soper, verderers. The same accounts in money paid for enclosing 785 

 perches by a hedge made around the wood, and in making four gates in 

 the said enclosure with hinges, hasps, etc., etc.' 



From Edward IV.'s Act of 1482 it is clear that enclosure for natural 

 regeneration and for reproduction of stool-shoots and stoles had long 

 been practised as a common custom previous to that date. The preamble 

 to the Act shows this : 



Item, our said Lord the King, considering that divers subjects having woods 

 growing in their own ground within the forest of Rockingham, and other forests and 

 chases within his realm of England, or purlieus of the same, which have cut their said 

 wood, because the same subjects might not before time cut nor inclose their said 

 ground, to save the young spring of their wood so cut, any longer time than for three 

 years, (2) the same young spring hath been in times past, and daily is destroyed with 

 beasts and cattle of the same forest, chases, and purlieus, to the great hindrance, as 

 well of his said subjects, as of his deer, vert, and venison in their covert, and otherwise 

 likely to be the destruction of the same forests, chases, and purlieus ; etc. 



But in 1482 enclosure for regeneration and reproduction was legally 

 extended from three to seven years. 



In the twenty-sixth year of Henry VIII. there is a note concerning 

 Godshill coppice, a plantation now of oak called by the same name, in 

 the Exchequer (Queen's Remembrancer s Records] of ' money paid to 



1 Gilbert White, Natural History of Selborne, ' Observations on Vegetables : Yew.' 



443 



