THE NEW FOREST. 239 
tenant of a larger holding; and many are the men who 
have risen in this way from the position of labourer to 
that of farmer. Thus it is that there has grown up 
round the Forest a class of small occupiers, thrifty 
and fairly prosperous even in these days of agricultural 
depression, independent and with the sense of property, 
and to the last degree tenacious of their rights. 
As time went by, after the Act of 1551 it became 
more and more clear to the Commoners, and to those 
interested in the Forest from a public point of view, that 
the scheme of that Act, if carried out in the manner in 
which it was being put in force, would result in the 
destruction both of the beauties of the Forest, and of 
the value of the Commoners’ rights over it. When an 
inclosure for planting was determined on, the whole of 
the ancient timber within the area was cleared away ; 
the Jand was then drained by wide open drains, and was 
closely planted with Scotch firs and young oaks. These 
new plantations, owing to the preponderance of firs, 
were formal and gloomy in the extreme. All the former 
pasturage in the area was destroyed, and the growth of 
new feed in these closely-planted inclosures was impos- 
sible. It became apparent, from the disinclosed speci- 
mens of the much less mathematical and scientific method 
of planting under the Act of 1693 in the time of the early 
Georges, that the “nurseries” authorised by the Act of 
1851 would replace the wild and picturesque woodlands 
with plantations of a most monotonous and artificial 
appearance, fatal to the natural beauty of the scenery, 
which they would destroy past all chance of restoration, 
