334 



THE BEECH. 



end distinct from the first, but, regarded in what- 

 ever light we please, co-operating to perfect the 

 will of God : 



" Thus all tilings have their end, yet none but Thine.'* 



For a graphic description of a Beech-wood in 

 autmnn, I must refer to Gilpin, who, in his 

 account of Boldrewood, in the New Forest, finds 

 himself compelled to qualify his own. strictures on 

 the deficiency of pictui'esque beauty in this tree. 

 After repeating the substance of the remarks 

 quoted above, he proceeds to say : If the trees, 

 however, as individuals, were less pleasing, their 

 combinations were highly beautiful, and exhibited 

 much scenery from those natural openings and 

 glades, which are so often found in the internal 

 parts of forests. 



^^AU the woods around Boldi'ewood Lodge 

 abound in Beech. The mast of this tree is the 

 most fattening food for deer, and gives such 

 repute to the winter venison of Boldrewood walk, 

 that a stranger would have ^ifiiculty in getting a 

 king's warrant for a doe executed in it. These 

 woods also aff'ord excellent feeding for hogs, 

 which are led in the autumn season into many 

 parts of the forest to fatten on mast. It is among 

 the rights of the forest borderers to feed their 

 hogs in the forest during pa^raage month, as 

 it is called, which commences about the end 

 of September, and lasts six weeks. For this 

 privilege they pay a trifling acknowledgment 

 at the Steward's court at Lyndhurst. The word 

 pawnage was the old term for the money thus 

 collected. The method of treating hogs at this 

 season of migration, and of reducing a large herd 



