OF FOREST-TREES. 171 



of others. Always remember (before you so much as enter upon this chap. I. 

 work) to preserve sufficient plash-pole about the verge and bounds 

 of the copse, for fence and security of what you leave ; and for this, 

 something less than a rod may suffice : then raking your wood clear 

 of spray, claps, and all incumbrances, shut it up from the cattle ; the 

 longer the better. 



By the statute, men were bound to inclose copses after felling, of or 

 under fourteen years' growth, for four years : those above fourteen years' 

 growth, to be sixteen years inclosed ; and for woods in common, a fourth 

 part to shut up ; and at felling, the like proportion of great trees to be 

 left, and seven years inclosed ; this was enlarged by 13 Eliz. Your 

 elder under-woods may be grazed about July : but for a general rule, 

 new-weaned calves are the least noxious to newly-cut spring-woods, 

 where there is abundance of grass ; and some say, colts of a year old ; 

 but then the calves must be driven out in May at farthest, though the 

 colts be permitted to stay a while longer ; but of this, every man's 

 experience will direct him ; and surely, the later you admit beasts to 

 graze, the better. For the measure of fuel, these proportions were to 

 be observed : 



Statutable billet should hold three feet in length, and seven inches and 

 a half in compass ; ten or fourteen as they are counted for one, two, or 

 three, &c. A stack of wood (which is the boughs and offal of the trees 

 to be converted to charcoal) is four yards long, three feet and a half high, 

 (in some places but a yard,) and as much over : in other places, the cord 

 is four feet in height, and four feet over ; or, to speak more geometri- 

 cally, a solid made up of three dimensions, four feet high, four feet 

 broad, and eight feet long ; the content one hundi'ed and twenty-eight 

 cubic feet. — Faggots ought to be a full yard in length, and two feet in 

 circumference, made round, and not flat ; for so they contain less fuel, 

 though appearing equal in the bulk. 



In the mean-time, it were to be wished that some approved experi- 

 ments were sedulously tried, with the advice of skilful and ingenious 

 physicians, for the making of beer without hops ; as possibly with the 

 white marrubium, a plant of singular virtue, or with dried heath-tops, 

 viz. that sort which bears no berries, or the like, far more wholesome. 



