PART IV. 



FORKSTAL LITERATURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



POKESTAL AND AEBOEICULTURAL LITERATURE PREVIOUS 

 TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 



The literature of England on the subjects of forests and 

 plantations has been published almost entirely within the 

 last three centuries, and a like statement may be made to 

 cover the whole of such literature in the English language. 

 By the more restricted phraseology of the literature of 

 England on the subject I wish to specify what has been 

 published in England alone, to the exclusion of works 

 which may have been published in Scotland or elsewhere. 



Reference has been made in preceding chapters to 

 several of these, both of the earlier and the later periods 

 of that era. Amongst these are Man wood's Forest Laws 

 and Sir Henry Spelman's List of English Forests. 



The iirst of these was published, as has been stated, in 

 1598. It was entitled "A Treatise of the Laws of the 

 Forest, and of the Purlieu, wherein is declared not only 

 these laws (then 1598-1599) in force ; but also the original 

 and beginning of Forests ; what a Forest is in its own 

 proper nature, and wherein the same doth differ from a 

 Chase or Warren ; with all such things as are incidental 

 ■or belonging thereto." It is an interesting work, often 

 quoted as an authority on the subj ects referred to. A second 

 edition appeared in 161 5, a third in 1665, a fourth in 1718, 



