* Throws' of Timber 235 



corners of the meadows, and by groups and detached trees 

 in the middle of the fields. 



Many hedges are full of elms, some have rows of oaks ; 

 some meadows have trees growing so thickly in all four 

 hedges as to seem surrounded by a timber wall ; one or 

 two have a number of ancient spreading oaks dotted about 

 in the field itself, or standing in rows. But there are not 

 nearly so many trees as there used to be. Numerous 

 hedges have been grubbed to make the fields larger. 



Within the last thirty years two large falls of timber 

 have taken place, when the elms especially were thrown 

 wholesale. The old men, however, recall a much greater 

 4 throw/ as they term it, of timber, which occurred twice 

 as long ago. Then before that they have a tradition that 

 a still earlier ' throw ' took place, when the timber chiefly 

 went to the dockyards for the building of those wooden 

 walls which held the world at bay. These traditions go 

 back, therefore, some eighty or a hundred years. One 

 field in particular is pointed out where stood a double row 

 or avenue of great oaks leading to nothing but a farm- 

 stead of the ordinary sort, of which there is not the 

 slightest record that it ever was anything but a farmhouse. 

 Now avenues of great oaks are not planted to lead to 

 farmsteads. Besides these, it is said, there were oaks in 

 most of the fields oaks that have long since disappeared, 

 the prevalent tree being elm. 



While all these ' throws ' of timber have successively 

 taken place, no attempt has been made to fill up the gaps; 

 no planting of acorns, no shielding with rails the young 

 saplings from the ravages of cattle. If a young tree could 

 struggle up, it could ; if not, it perished. At the last two 

 4 throws,' especially, young trees which ought to have been 

 saved were ruthlessly cut down. Yet even now the place 



