OF FOREST-TREES. 



283 



Historical Library, part iii. chap. iv. lately published by the worthy CHAP, 

 archdeacon, now bishop of Carlisle. — But let us see what others do. "^^^ 



The king of Spain has, near Bilboa, sixteen times as many acres of 

 coppice- wood as are fit to be cut for coal in one year ; so that when it is 

 ready to be felled, an officer first marks such as are like to prove ship- 

 timber, which are let stand, as so many sacred and delicate trees ; by 

 which means the iron-works are plentifully supplied in the same place, 

 without at all diminishing the stock of timber. Then in Biscay again, 

 every proprietor plants three for one which he cuts down, and the law 

 obliging them is most severely executed. See what we have already 

 mentioned of the duke of Lunenberg in this chapter, and that of the 

 Walnut-tree. There are, indeed, few or no coppices, but all are pollards ; 

 and the very lopping, I am assured, does furnish the iron-works with 

 sufficient to support them. 



Wliat the practice is for the maintaining of these kinds of plantations in 

 Germany and France, has abeady been observed to this illustrious society, 

 by the learned Dr. Merret, viz. that the lords and (for the crown-lands) 

 the king's commissioners divide the woods and forests into eighty par- 

 titions, every year felling one of the divisions, so as no wood is feUed in 

 less than fourscore years: and when any one partition is to be cut down, 

 the officer or lord contracts with the buyer, that he shall, at the distance 

 of every twenty feet, (which is somewhat near,) leave a good, fair, sound, 

 and fruitful Oak standing : those of betwixt forty and fifty years, they 

 reckon for the best, and then they are to fence these trees from all sorts 

 of beasts and injuries for a competent time ; which being done at the 

 season, down fall the acorns which(with the autumnal rains beaten into 

 the earth) take root, and in a short time furnish all the wood again, where 

 they let them grow for four or five years, and then grub up some of 

 them for fuel, or transplantation, and leave the most probable of them 

 to continue for timber. 



The French king permits none of his Oak woods, though belonging 

 (some of them) to Monsieur, his roj^al brother, in appanage, to be cut 

 down, till his own surveyors and officers have first marked them out; nor 

 are any felled beyond such a circuit: then are they sufficiently fenced by 

 him who buys ; and no cattle, whatsoever, suffisred to be put in till the 

 very seedlings (which spring up of the acorns) are perfectly out of danger. 



