58 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
meaning of our statutes by cutting and felling the 
young stores when they usually fell their under- 
woods.” And he set an excellent example by 
laying down a rule for the New Forest, that in 
the ordinary annual falls for fuel, &c., ‘all 
timber trees are to be excepted, and all saplings 
of Oak that are likely to make timber, and that 
twelve standels be left in every acre.’ 
Much the same thing probably happened in 
Ireland, though neither that country nor Scotland 
has yet had its Manwood to trace and record 
in detail the gradual evolution of the forest laws. 
Harbouring the Irish, the woods were a source of 
danger to the English nobles, and everything was 
done to effect their destruction; while from the 
very circumstances of English rule in Ireland 
there could be no royal forests reserved for the 
king’s amusement. 
That the Scottish laws relating to forests 
were nothing like so ancient as those of Eng- 
land seems clear. ‘There is, probably, no 
Scotch writing extant,’ says the Preface to 
the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, pub- 
lished by royal command in 1844, ‘whether of 
Charter, Record, or Chronicle, so old as the reign 
