OF FOREST-TREES. 271 



CHAP. VI. 



Of the Laws and Statutes for the Preservation and Improvemetit of 



WOODS and FORESTS. 



It is not to be passed by, that the very first law we find which was ever CHAP. VI. 

 promulged, was concerning trees — and that laws themselves were first ^^-^"V'^ 

 written upon them*, or tables composed of them ; and after that establish- • The laws of 



• 1 1 • -\iT -XT Numa were 



ment in Paradise, the next we meet withal are as ancient as Moses. You first cut in 

 may find the statute at large in Deut. xx. ] 9, 20, which though they lis, before they 



^ . , . . -Ti n -t were engraven 



chiefly tended to fruit-trees, even m an enemy s country, yet you will find in brass, see 

 a case of necessity only alleged for the permission to destroy any other, ^^^^s. iHt' 



To sum up briefly the laws and civil constitutions of great antiquity, 

 Servius informs us it was no less than capital, alienas arhores incidere ; 

 the Lex Aquilia, and those of the twelve tables mentioned by Paulus, 

 Cujas, Julianus, and others of that robe, repeated divers more. 



It was by those sacred constitutions provided, that none might so much 

 as plant trees on the confines of his neighbour's ground, but he was to 

 leave a space of at the least five feet, for the smallest tree, that they might 

 not injure him with their shadow. Si arbor in vicini agrum impenderit, 

 earn suhlucato, ; and if, for all this, any hung over farther, it was to 

 be stripped up fifteen feet : and this law Balduinus, Olderdoi-pius, and 

 Hotoman recite out of Ulpian, lib. i. F. de Arb. Ceedend. where we have 

 the praetor's interdict expressed, and the impendent wood adjudged to 

 appertain to him whose field or fence was thereby damnified : nay, the 

 wise Solon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees, as the 

 divine Plato did against stealing of fruit, and violating of plantations : 

 and the interdiction de glande legenda runs thus in Ulpian, AIT 

 PRMTOR, GLANDEM, QU^ EX ILLIUS AGRO IN 

 TUUM CAD AT, QUO MINUS ILLI TERTIO QUOQUE 

 DIE LEGERE,AUFERRE LICEAT; VIM FIERI FE TO. 

 And yet, though by the praetor's permission he might come every third 

 day to gather it up without trespass, his neighbour was to share of the 

 mast which so fell into his ground ; and this chapter is well supplied 



M m 2! 



