OF FOREST-TREES. 



277 



V. Foliar in Constit. Rey. de Offic. Tract. 11, 92, 93, &c. I dare not cHAP. VI. 

 suggest the encouragement of a yet farther restraint, that even proprietors '^-""V-"*^ 

 themselves should not presume to make havock of some of their own 

 woods to feed their prodigality, and heap fuel to their vices ; but it is 

 worthy of our observation, that (in that inimitable oration^ the second 

 philippic) Cicero does not so sharply reproach his great antagonist for 

 any other of his extravagancies, which yet he there enumerates, as for 

 his wasteful disposure of certain woodlands belonging to the common- 

 wealth, amongst his jovial bravos and lewd companions ; tua ista detri- 

 menta sunt ; (meaning his debauches ;) ilia nostra ; speaking of the tim- 

 ber. And, doubtless, the spoil and wasting of this necessary material 

 is no less than a public calamity. This John Duke of Lancaster knew 

 well enough, when, to revenge the depredations made upon the English 

 borders, it is said, he set four-and-twenty thousand axes at work at 

 once, to destroy the woods in Scotland. 



But to the laws : it were to be wished that our tender and improvable 

 woods should not admit of cattle by any means, till they were quite grown 

 out of reach ; the statutes which connive at it, in favour of custom, and 

 for the satisfying of a few clamorous and rude commoners, are too indul- 

 gent ; since it is very evident, that less than a fourteen or fifteen years' 

 inclosure is, in most places, too soon ; and our most material trees would 

 be of infinite more worth and improvement, were the standards suffered 

 to grow to timber, and not so frequently cut, at the next felhng of the 

 wood, as the general custom is. In the 22nd Edw. IV. the liberty ar- 

 rived but to seven years after a felling of a forest or purlieu ; and but 

 three years before, without special licence. This was very narrow ; but 

 let us then look on England as an over-grown country. 



Wood in parks was afterwards to be four years fenced, upon felling ; 

 and yearling colts and calves might be put into inclosed woods after two : 

 by the 13th Eliz. five years, and no other cattle till six, if the growth 

 was under fourteen years ; or until eight, if exceeding that age, till the 

 last felling. All which statutes being by the act of Hen. VIII. but 

 temporal, this parliament of Elizabeth thought fit to make perpetual. 



Then to prevent the destructive razing and converting of woods to pas- 

 ture : no wood of two acres, and above two furlongs from the mansion- 

 Volume II. N n 



