224 Agricultural Capabilities of the Neio Forest. 
tion can be very conveniently connected with the continuation 
of the right of pasturage — or rather, its restoration for a proper 
consideration. 
It is somewhat difficult to estimate the value of these claims 
individually as well as collectively ; for, whilst the right of 
turning out a yearling heifer, a Scotch or Welsh, or a pony, 
may not be worth so much as a pound a year, yet, in a locality 
where milch cows can be turned out and yet housed and milked, 
the value of the same may be from 21. to 3^. With regard to the 
number to be commuted, no doubt the claims will be considerably 
in excess of the numbers that are pastured out ; but the average 
number for some years past may perhaps rule the amount of claims 
to be compensated. At present the understood rule is that, on a 
farm possessing rights of feed, as many animals may be turned 
out during the summer as can be fed on the farm during the winter. 
We imagine, if this rule were fully exercised, there would be 
an insufficiency of feed for the animals turned out. If the average 
value of the feed of each animal were 25s., and during the last 
five years an average of 3000 animals have been turned out, the 
aggregate value of the same would be under 4,000/. ; but if one- 
half or one-third of these animals could get sustenance on the 
belt or circle of land proposed to be awarded to each town or 
village for sanitary purposes, the inconvenience would be much 
diminished. There are thus three strong arguments in favour of 
retaining a portion as pasture or improved forest : — 
(1) The advantage for sanitary and recreative purposes: a 
principle generally conceded. 
(2) The advantage in a picturesque point of view, as forest 
scenery might be retained, with many of its finest and most orna- 
mental trees. 
(3) The opportunity it would offer of retaining or restoring in 
part the most valuable of the Forest rights, that of pasturage or 
its equivalent ; and, besides this, it may hereafter afford conve- 
nient means of utilizing the sewage of the respective towns or 
villages to which the land may be appropriated. 
The practice of cutting fern for litter does not appear to be 
done in virtue of any right, but we presume it is paid for. It is 
much less destructive to the land than cutting turf, inasmuch 
as it does not remove the soil itself, with the exception of the 
earths which enter into the composition of the plant. The soil 
which furnishes it is also of a moister nature and deeper 
character and likely to make a more generous return. No men- 
tion is made of the right of cutting fern in the account of Forest 
rights which is signed by the three Commissioners, who sat in 1854 
to decide on the Forest claims, and which precedes the list of 
claimants who have succeeded in establishing their rights for 
