for their grasses ; and by maintaining their geese and 

 their stock of young cattle at little or no expense. 



The manor-farm of the parish of Greatham has 

 an admitted claim, I see (by an old record taken 

 from the Tower of London), of turning all live stock 

 on the forest, at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis. 

 For this privilege the owner of that estate used to 

 pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats. In 

 the Holt Forest, where a full stock of fallow-deer 

 has been kept up till lately, no sheep are admitted. 

 The reason, I presume, being that sheep are such 

 close grazers, they would pick out all the finest 

 grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving. 



Though (by statute 4 and 5 Wm. and Mary, c. 23) 

 " to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and 

 Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath, and furze gorse 

 or fern, is punishable with whipping and confine- 

 ment in the House of Correction ; " yet, in this for- 

 est, about March or April, according to the dryness 

 of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, 

 that they often get to a masterless head, and, catch- / 

 ing the hedges, have sometimes been communicated / 

 to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where/ 

 great damage has ensued. The plea for these burn-' 

 ings is, that when the old coat of heath, &c., is con- 

 sumed, young will sprout up and afford much tender 

 browse for cattle; but, where there is large old 

 furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the 

 very ground ; so that for hundreds of acres nothing 



23 



