ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 75 



in turn have now ceased to exist save merely in 

 name. 



Many of these survivals of the great ancient 

 woodlands fell to the axe about a century ago, 

 when prices rose considerably for timber growing 

 within easy reach of the then existing markets. 

 In most cases a clean sweep was made of them, 

 and a goose was thus killed which might now 

 have been laying golden eggs. 



The Commonwealth gave the deathblow to 

 the oppression which the forest laws had exerted 

 on the people of England for nearly six hundred 

 years. Portions of the ancient royal forests still 

 exist, as the New Forest in Hants, the Forest 

 of Dean in Gloucestershire, and others elsewhere ; 

 but their administration was modified consider- 

 ably after the Restoration, the savage claws of 

 the forest laws being then cut almost as effec- 

 tually as the mastiffs used to be ' lamed ' of 

 old. And their present administration as Crown 

 lands by Commissioners of Woods and Forests, 

 Verderers, and Deputy-Surveyors, in accordance 

 with comparatively recent Acts of Parliament, 

 is quite a different matter from what it once 

 was. 



