140 THE NEW FOREST 



three categories, there is no doubt at all. The 

 Acts of Parliament under which they were made, 

 and the returns as to their formation and plant- 

 ing, are too recent and too easily inspected to 

 admit of any dispute in their case. It is in 

 connection with the "old woods," the great 

 beauty of the Forest, which the opponents of 

 forestry use to bolster up their case by arguing 

 that they are "primeval," and "natural," that we 

 have to look up ancient records long before the 

 year 1700 to show that all these woods were 

 just as much the result of the care of the Forest 

 officers of those days as is the youngest " Crown 

 enclosure " in the Forest. 



It is not possible to trace to its commence- 

 ment the practice of enclosing land for natural 

 regeneration, and for reproduction of stool shoots 

 and seedlings ; but the wording of the first Act 

 I can find on the subject, that of Edward IV 

 in 1483, recites the practice as a common one, 

 "In forests and chases within his realm of 

 England, or purlieus of the same," and extends 

 the period during which the land might be en- 

 closed for that purpose from the existing limit 

 of three years to one of seven years. 



To go to the New Forest particularly, we 

 find a return in the sixteenth year of Henry VI 

 by Henry Carter of Walhampton and Thomas 



