ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 57 



enforced in England. Large tracts in the south 

 covered with a natural growth of trees were 

 devastated during the period when Edward I. 

 waged war in Scotland ; and John of Gaunt, Duke 

 of Lancaster, is said to have employed twenty- 

 four thousand men in destroying the forests as 

 punishment for an incursion. Before the Stuarts 

 ascended the throne of England, Jacobean statutes 

 had been promulgated throughout Scotland en- 

 joining the formation of plantations of trees ; and 

 early in his reign James I. of England gave 

 attention to the preservation of immature timber 

 trees, and issued more than once proclamations 

 enjoining the retention of ' stores ' when the 

 underwoods were being felled. In a proclama- 

 tion, issued in 1608, he notified that 'great spoils 

 and devastations are committed within our forests, 

 parks, and chases/ And the royal edict set forth, 

 ' we therefore have endeavoured to take course 

 to stop the said abuses ... to the end that our 

 care may appear to the preservation and increase 

 of timber as well to others as to ourselves . . . 

 we do straightly command and charge all our 

 loving subjects in general that in their own woods 

 they presume not hereafter to defraud the true 



