234 Next to the Ground 



and crop " were, in the old days often forest 

 perquisites of royal favorites. Lop, top, and 

 crop, meant what could be cut away yet still 

 leave ship timber for the king's or the queen's 

 navy. Shipbuilders had complained that the 

 lop was stretched to include much wood " ex- 

 cellently crooked, and fit for ship-knees." So 

 the lop was strictly the big branches, as the 

 top was the whole upper tip which came down 

 when the tree was pollarded — that is to say, 

 topped, or derived of its poll, or head. 



Often sitting upon the stump of a board- 

 tree, and counting its two hundred odd rings, 

 each marking a year's growth, Joe let him- 

 self dream of the oaks a thousand years old, 

 whose destruction had been the prime end of 

 the great Spanish Armada. Spain aimed to 

 conquer England by destroying her real hearts 

 of oak. What availed it to burn or sink a 

 fleet, so long as those pestilent islanders had 

 timber to build two ships for every one sunk ? 

 He thought too of Sarah Jennings, Ranger of 

 Windsor Forest, scowling, scuffling, scraping 

 every possible penny for the enrichment of her 

 husband, the scapegrace John Churchill, first 

 Duke of Marlborough ; also of the knight who 

 held a forest upon condition of "giving the 

 king's majesty one snowball any day in the 

 year it may be asked " ; and of the baronet 

 whose tenure hinged upon furnishing a pair 



