FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



modern plantations and are now growing a successful crop of hardwood. 

 Those which have not been so dealt with consist mostly of beech woods, 

 for the very sufficient reason that successive generations of dockyard 

 purveyors have searched them for oak over and over again in order to 

 provide for the requirements of the Navy. The beeches which are left 

 naturally, considering the great age which (for that species of timber) 

 they have attained, are rapidly becoming very much decayed, and in 

 many cases the woods are disappearing at a sad rate. The soil is as 

 productive as ever, and after a good mast year the crop of seedlings of 

 beech and oak is amazing ; but, as has been pointed out elsewhere (vide 

 p. 460), the present conditions of management of the New Forest which 

 Parliament has prescribed do not admit of any protection being given 

 to the young plants against the ravages of the cattle, and so the old 

 Elizabethan woods are perishing instead of being permitted (as formerly) 

 to renew themselves from generation to generation of trees. 



But there was waste, and sad waste, in those days also, as is shown 

 by several of Roger Taverner's entries ; to wit, ' Gatewood, 60 acres, 

 being utterly destroyed by John Harrison of Bewley and nothing there 

 left but 52 staddles.' It is to be hoped that in consequence of this spoil- 

 ation John Harrison was made to feel the weight of such forest law as 

 then remained, for a little further we read that ' Ironhill Coppice is lately 

 destroyed by John Harrison and John Hayward,' and so on through the 

 long roll of the woods and the damage done to them. Among the 

 articles which John Taverner was directed in 1584 to 'address to the 

 preservators of woods and other forestal officers,' including, of course, 

 the officers of New Forest, is, ' That both the woodward and also the 

 said preservators and the keepers have a diligent respect that the springs 

 of the coppices be kept fenced and preserved from destruction by any 

 manner of cattle or beasts.' And further orders were issued for the 

 impounding and fining of any cattle found trespassing within the en- 

 closed coppices or plantations. 



James I., an ardent planter, though making no new enactments, 

 paid much attention to the New Forest, and more than once issued pro- 

 clamations enjoining the preservation of woodlands as well as closer 

 attention and obedience to the statutes relating to the felling of coppices 

 and the storing of timber-trees. In addition to the instructions concern- 

 ing ' woods' already given above (p. 428), he had a survey made of the 

 timber in the royal forests in 1608, and ordered the ploughing of the 

 land for the raising of new woods, the gathering of acorns, and the sowing, 

 planting, or dibbling of them ' by mens' hands.' In fact King James had 

 a rough-and-ready but quite a definite working plan or scheme of 

 management prepared for all the royal woods throughout England. 

 This is to be found among the Cottonian MSS., Titus B iv. ; temp. 

 James I., docketed as Treasury Office ; Increase of Revenue. Under the 

 head of Planting, Increasing and Preserving of Woods the then existing 

 30,000 acres of coppices were to be raised to 81,000 by adding 51,000 

 acres in fifteen years. These 3,400 acres of new woods annually were 



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