FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



and quick set by the same, or sowing it with furze, with the charge of ploughing and 

 sowing the ground, is estimated at 400 . . . These are by virtue of His Majesty's said 

 warrant to require and authorise you forthwith to proceed with all care and diligence 

 in the doing of the said several works. 



That this work was done is still evident from the ancient banks at 

 Holm Hill and Prior's Acre, now absorbed in the more recent enclos- 

 ures of King's Garn and Holm Hill. A subsequent warrant of 1671 

 substituted land at Aldridge Hill and Hollidays Hill for that at Prior's 

 Acre and Dunstan Heath. There is also a very ancient bank at Prior's 

 Acre, but that was again enclosed in the early days of Queen Anne under 

 the Act of William III. ; and both Aldridge Hill and Hollidays Hill 

 have been enclosed and planted at least twice since 1671, so that definite 

 traces of the older enclosures are not easy to distinguish from later banks 

 and ditches. The method employed is interesting in respect of the 

 fencing and ploughing ordered to be done. It affords conclusive evi- 

 dence that these old woods owe their origin to most careful cultivation 

 and management from the earliest of times. And just as no chance 

 system of leaving all to nature produced the old woods in which we 

 delight now, so no such haphazard methods will ever suffice to maintain 

 them for the future. Unless some such care as our ancestors bestowed 

 upon them be given now they must perish in course of time, for nature 

 unassisted will no more be able to renew them than she could 300 years 

 ago. 



Nothing of importance seems to have occurred until the year 1698, 

 when the Act of William III. (vide p. 430) may be said to have 

 inaugurated a system of forest management which, with variations as to 

 the vigour of its enforcement, remained the guiding principle of the forest 

 administration for about 150 years. The Act of 1698 had provided 

 for the immediate enclosure of 2,000 acres ' out of such parts or places 

 in the New Forest as shall be found ... to be most convenient to be 

 closed and to be most apt and meet to produce wood and timber for the 

 future benefit of the kingdom, and may be best spared from the com- 

 moners and highways of the county ' and the further enclosure of 200 

 acres a year for twenty years, or 6,000 acres in all ; and when these said 

 6,000 acres or any part thereof should have become ' past danger of 

 browsing of deer, cattle or other prejudice ' the enclosures could be 

 thrown open to cattle ; while further enclosures were to be made in their 

 stead to the like extent of any other part of the waste of the forest. 

 The form of 'encoppicement ' which had sprung up during the seven- 

 teenth century was to enclose the various woods with ditch and fence, 

 and within the enclosures three acorns were sown triangularly in ' pits 

 or beds of three spits of ground each dug a yard apart . . . and after 

 the ground was fully planted with acorns it was sown with hawes, holly- 

 berries, sloes and hazelnuts, and drains cut where necessary, and traps 

 were set to catch mice, and persons attended daily to re-set the traps 

 and keep off crows and other vermin.' About 1,022 acres were thus 

 at once enclosed, planted, and tended for about fifteen years ; then for 



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