English Coppices and Copsewoods. 297 



The penalty for felling coppice without leaving standard trees 

 as thus ordered was a fine of 3s. 4d. for each storer not so 

 left standing, and a further fine of 3s. 4d. was levied for any 

 standard felled in contravention of the Act before attaining a 

 proper girth. And to encourage informers half the amount of 

 the fines was made payable to them, while the other half went 

 to the King. Provision was also made for the enclosure and 

 fencing for four years of all coppices worked with a rotation 

 of fourteen years or less, under a fine of 3 s. 46. per acre for every 

 month during the four years " that the same coppices or under- 

 woods shall happen to lie or be unenclosed, not fenced, saved 

 or preserved." No calves were to be grazed within the woods 

 for two years after felling, and no other cattle within tour 

 years. And, similarly, coppices worked with a rotation of 

 between fourteen and twenty-four years were to be enclosed 

 and fenced for six years, subject to the like penalty. When 

 woods or coppices having standards of over twenty-four 

 years in age were felled or thinned (" weeding " was the term 

 used), then " for every acr^ so felled, twelve trees of oak of 

 the same such great trees" (or, failing these of elm, ash, asp,, 

 or beech), were to be left standing for the next twenty years,, 

 and the falls were to be enclosed and fenced for seven years,, 

 under penalty of 6s. 8d. per tree felled in excess of this 

 statutory injunction, and of 3s. 46.. per acre per mensem in the 

 event of failure to enclose. After Michaelmas, 1544, no 

 coppice woods of two acres or more in extent were to be 

 converted into tillage or pasture land, if distant tivo furlongs 

 from the house of the owner or tenant thereof, under 

 penalty of 40s. per acre thus transformed. 



This Statute of Woods was something entirely different 

 from the Act of 1482. This new enactment was compulsory^ 

 prohibitive, and applied to all woods throughout the realm ;. 

 whereas the Act of two generations before had been purely 

 permissive in character, and had applied only to woods 

 situated within the royal forests and chases, and their 

 purlieus. Stringent measures had become the order of the 

 day, consequent on the dearth of timber and wood of all sorts, 

 for fuel as well as for constructive purposes. 



But even the great and firm step thus taken in 1543 was 



