OF WOODS AND MARSHES.
[1577, Book II., Chapter 16; 1587, Book II., Chapter 22.]
It should seem by ancient records, and the testimony of sundry authors,
that the whole countries of Lhoegres and Cambria, now England and Wales,
have sometimes been very well replenished with great woods and groves,
although at this time the said commodity be not a little decayed in both,
and in such wise that a man shall oft ride ten or twenty miles in each of
them and find very little, or rather none at all, except it be near unto
towns, gentlemen's houses, and villages, where the inhabitants have
planted a few elms, oaks, hazels, or ashes about their dwellings, for
their defence from the rough winds and keeping of the stormy weather from
annoyance of the same. This scarcity at the first grew (as it is thought)
either by the industry of man, for maintenance of tillage (as we
understand the like to be done of late by the Spaniards in the West
Indies, where they fired whole woods of very great compass, thereby to
come by ground whereon to sow their grains), or else through the
covetousness of such as, in preferring of pasture for their sheep and
greater cattle, do make small account of firebote and timber, or, finally,
by the cruelty of the enemies, whereof we have sundry examples declared in
our histories. Howbeit where the rocks and quarry grounds are I take the
swart of the earth to be so thin that no tree of any greatness, other than
shrubs and bushes, is able to grow or prosper long therein for want of
sufficient moisture wherewith to feed them with fresh humour, or at the
leastwise of mould to shroud, stay upright, and cherish the same in the
blustering winter's weather, till they may grow into any greatness, and
spread or yield their roots down right into the soil about them: and this
either is or may be one other cause, wherefore some places are naturally
void of wood. But to proceed. Although I must needs confess that there is
good store of great wood or timber here and there even now in some places
of England, yet in our days it is far unlike to that plenty which our
ancestors have seen heretofore when stately building was less in use. For,
albeit that there were then greater number of messuages and mansions
almost in every place, yet were their frames so slight and slender that
one mean dwelling-house in our time is able to countervail very many of
them, if you consider the present charge with the plenty of timber that we
bestow upon them. In times past men were contented to dwell in houses
built of sallow, willow, plum tree, hardbeam, and elm, so that the use of
oak was in manner dedicated wholly unto churches, religious houses,
princes' palaces, noblemen's lodgings, and navigation; but now all these
are rejected, and nothing but oak any whit regarded. And yet see the
change! For, when our houses were built of willow, then had we oaken men;
but, now that our houses are come to be made of oak, our men are not only
become willow, but a great many through Persian delicacy crept in among us
altogether of straw: which is a sore alteration. In those, the courage of
the owner was a sufficient defence to keep the house in safety; but now
the assurance of the timber, double doors, locks, and bolts, must defend
the man from robbing. Now have we many chimneys; and yet our tenderlings
complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses. Then had we none but reredosses;
and our heads did never ache. For, as the smoke in those days was supposed
to be a sufficient hardening for the timber of the house, so it was
reputed a far better medicine to keep the goodman and his family from the
quake or pose, wherewith as then very few were oft acquainted.
Of the curiousness of these piles I speak not, sith our workmen are grown
generally to such an excellency of device in the frames now made that they
far pass the finest of the old. And, such is their husbandry in dealing
with their timber, that the same stuff which in time past was rejected as
crooked, unprofitable, and of no use but the fire doth now come in the
fronts and best part of the work. Whereby the common saying is likewise in
these days verified in our mansion houses, which erst was said only of the
timber for ships, that "no oak can grow so crooked but it falleth out to
some use," and that necessary in the navy. It is a world to see, moreover,
how divers men being bent to building, and having a delectable vein in
spending of their goods by that trade, do daily imagine new devices of
their own, to guide their workmen withal, and those more curious and
excellent always than the former. In the proceeding also of their works,
how they set up, how they pull down, how they enlarge, how they restrain,
how they add to, how they take from, whereby their heads are never idle,
their purses never shut, nor their books of account never made perfect.
"_Destruunt, ædificant, mutant quadrata rotundis_,"
saith the poet. So that, if a man should well consider of all the odd
crotchets in such a builder's brain, he would think his head to have even
enough of those affairs only, and therefore judge that he would not well
be able to deal in any other. But such commonly are our work-masters that
they have beside this vein aforementioned either great charge of
merchandises, little less business in the commonwealth, or, finally, no
small dealings otherwise incident unto them, whereby gain ariseth, and
some trouble oft among withal. Which causeth me to wonder not a little how
they can play the parts so well of so many sundry men, whereas divers
other, of greater forecast in appearance, can seldom shift well or thrive
in any one of them. But to our purpose.
We have many woods, forests, and parks, which cherish trees abundantly,
although in the woodland countries there is almost no hedge that hath not
some store of the greatest sort, beside infinite numbers of hedgerows,
groves, and springs, that are maintained of purpose for the building and
provision of such owners as do possess the same. Howbeit, as every soil
doth not bear all kinds of wood, so there is not any wood, park, hedgerow,
grove, or forest, that is not mixed with divers, as oak, ash, hazel,
hawthorn, birch, beech, hardbeam, hull, sorb, quicken, asp, poplars, wild
cherry, and such like, whereof oak hath always the pre-eminence, as most
meet for building and the navy, whereunto it is reserved. This tree
bringeth forth also a profitable kind of mast, whereby such as dwell near
unto the aforesaid places do cherish and bring up innumerable herds of
swine. In time of plenty of this mast, our red and fallow deer will not
let to participate thereof with our hogs, more than our neat, yea, our
common poultry also, if they may come unto them.[192] But, as this
abundance doth prove very pernicious unto the first, so the eggs which
these latter do bring forth (beside blackness in colour and bitterness of
taste) have not seldom been found to breed divers diseases unto such
persons as have eaten of the same. I might add in like sort the profit
ensuing by the bark of this wood, whereof our tanners have great use in
dressing leather, and which they buy yearly in May by the fadame, as I
have oft seen; but it shall not need at this time to enter into any such
discourse, only this I wish, that our sole and upper leathering may have
their due time, and not be hasted on by extraordinary flights, as with
ash, bark, etc. Whereby, as I grant that it seemeth outwardly to be very
thick and well done, so if you respect the sadness thereof, it doth prove
in the end to be very hollow, and not able to hold out water. Nevertheless
we have good laws for the redress of this enormity, but it cometh to pass
in these as in the execution of most penal statutes. For the gains to be
got by the same being given to one or two hungry and unthrifty persons,
they make a shew of great reformation at the first, and for a little
while, till they find that following of suit in law against the offenders
is somewhat too chargeable and tedious. This therefore perceived, they
give over the law, and fall to the admission of gifts and rewards to wink
at things past; and, when they have once gone over their ground with this
kind of tillage, then do they tender licences, and offer large
dispensations unto him that shall ask the same, thereby to do what he
listeth in his trade for a yearly pension, whereby the briber now groweth
to some certain revenues and the tanner to so great liberty that his
leather is much worse than before. But is not this a mockery of our laws,
and manifest illusion of the good subject whom they thus pill and poll? Of
all oak growing in England the park oak is the softest, and far more spalt
and brittle than the hedge oak. And of all in Essex, that growing in
Bardfield Park is the finest for joiners' craft; for oftentimes have I
seen of their works made of that oak as fine and fair as most of the
wainscot that is brought hither out of Denmark: for our wainscot is not
made in England. Yet divers have essayed to deal without oaks to that end,
but not with so good success as they have hoped, because the ab or juice
will not so soon be removed and clean drawn out, which some attribute to
want of time in the salt water. Nevertheless, in building, so well the
hedge as the park oak go all one way, and never so much hath been spent in
a hundred years before as is in ten years of our time; for every man
almost is a builder, and he that hath bought any small parcel of ground,
be it never so little, will not be quiet till he have pulled down the old
house (if any were there standing) and set up a new after his own device.
But whereunto will this curiosity come?
Of elm we have great store in every highway and elsewhere, yet have I not
seen thereof any together in woods or forests but where they have been
first planted and then suffered to spread at their own wills. Yet have I
known great woods of beech and hazel in many places, especially in
Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, where they are greatly
cherished, and converted to sundry uses by such as dwell about them. Of
all the elms that ever I saw, those in the south side of Dovercourt, in
Essex, near Harwich, are the most notable, for they grow (I mean) in
crooked manner, that they are almost apt for nothing else but navy timber,
great ordinance, and beetles; and such thereto is their natural quality
that, being used in the said behalf, they continue longer, and more long
than any the like trees in whatsoever parcel else of this land, without
cuphar, shaking, or cleaving, as I find.
Ash cometh up everywhere of itself, and with every kind of wood. And as we
have very great plenty, and no less use of these in our husbandry, so are
we not without the plane, the yew, the sorb, the chestnut, the lime, the
black cherry, and such like. And although we enjoy them not in as great
plenty now in most places as in times past, or the other afore remembered;
yet have we sufficient of them all for our necessary turns and uses,
especially of yew; as may be seen betwixt Rotherham and Sheffield, and
some steads of Kent also, as I have been informed.
The fir, frankincense, and pine we do not altogether want, especially the
fir, whereof we have some store in Chatley Moor in Derbyshire, Shropshire,
Anderness, and a moss near Manchester, not far from Leicester's house:
although that in time past, not only all Lancashire, but a great part of
the coast between Chester and the Solme, were well stored. As for the
frankincense and the pine, they have been planted only in colleges and
cloisters, by the clergy and religious heretofore. Wherefore (in mine
opinion) we may rather say that we want them altogether: for, except they
grew naturally, and not by force, I see no cause why they should be
accounted for parcel of our commodities. We have also the asp, whereof our
fletchers make their arrows. The several kinds of poplars of our turners
have great use for bowls, trees, troughs, dishes, etc. Also the alder,
whose bark is not unprofitable to dye black withal, and therefore much
used by our country wives in colouring their knit hosen. I might here take
occasion to speak of the great sales yearly made of wood, whereby an
infinite quantity hath been destroyed within these few years: but I give
over to travel in this behalf. Howbeit, thus much I dare affirm, that if
woods go so fast to decay in the next hundred years of Grace as they have
done and are like to do in this, sometimes for increase of sheepwalks, and
some maintenance of prodigality and pomp (for I have known a
well-burnished gentleman that hath borne threescore at once in one pair of
galigascons to shew his strength and bravery[193]), it is to be feared
that the fenny bote, broom, turf, gall, heath, furze, brakes, whins, ling,
dies, hassacks, flags, straw, sedge, reed, rush, and also seacale, will be
good merchandise even in the city of London, whereunto some of them even
now have gotten ready passage, and taken up their inns in the greatest
merchants' parlours. A man would think that our laws were able enough to
make sufficient provision for the redress of this error and enormity
likely to ensue. But such is the nature of our countrymen that as many
laws as are made, so they will keep none; or, if they be urged to make
answer, they will rather seek some crooked construction of them to the
increase of their private gain than yield themselves to be guided by the
same for a commonwealth and profit to their country. So that in the end,
whatsoever the law saith, we will have our wills, whereby the wholesome
ordinances of the prince are contemned, the travel of the nobility and
councillors (as it were) derided, the commonwealth impoverished, and a few
only enriched by this perverse dealing. Thus many thousand persons do
suffer hindrance by this their lewd behaviour. Hereby the wholesome laws
of the prince are oft defrauded, and the good-meaning magistrate in
consultation about the commonwealth utterly neglected. I would wish that I
might live no longer than to see four things in this land reformed, that
is, the want of discipline in the church, the covetous dealing of most of
our merchants in the preferment of the commodities of other countries and
hindrance of their own, the holding of fairs[194] and markets upon the
Sundays be abolished and referred to the Wednesdays, and that every man in
whatsoever part of the champaign soil enjoyeth forty acres of land and
upwards (after that rate, either by free deed, copyhold, or free farm)
might plant one acre of wood or sow the same with oak mast, hazel, beech,
and sufficient provision be made that it may be cherished and kept. But I
fear me that I should then live too long, and so long that I should either
be weary of the world, or the world of me; and yet they are not such
things but that they may easily be brought to pass.
Certes every small occasion in my time is enough to cut down a great wood,
and every trifle sufficeth to lay infinite acres of ground unto pasture.
As for the taking down of houses, a small fine will bear out a great many.
Would to God we might once take example of the Romans, who, in restraint
of superfluous grazing, made an exact limitation how many head of cattle
each estate might keep, and what number of acres should suffice for that
and other purposes. Neither was wood ever better cherished, or mansion
houses maintained, than by their laws and statutes. Such also was their
care in the maintenance of navigation that it was a great part of the
charge of their consuls yearly to view and look unto the hills whereon
great timber did grow, lest their unnecessary faults for the satisfaction
of the private owner and his covetous mind might prove a prejudice unto
the commonwealth in the hindrance of sufficient stuff for the furniture of
their navy. Certes the like hereof is yet observed in Venice. Read also, I
pray you, what Suetonius writeth of the consulship of Bibulus and Cæsar.
As for the wood that Ancus Martius dedicated toward the maintenance of the
common navy, I pass it over, as having elsewhere remembered it unto
another end. But what do I mean to speak of these, sith my purpose is only
to talk of our own woods? Well, take this then for a final conclusion in
woods, that besides some countries are already driven to sell their wood
by the pound, which is a heavy report, within these forty years we shall
have little great timber growing about forty years old; for it is commonly
seen that those young staddles which we leave standing at one and twenty
years fall are usually at the next sale cut down without any danger of the
statute, and serve for fire bote, if it please the owner to burn them.
Marshes and fenny bogs we have many in England, though not now so many as
some of the old Roman writers do specify, but more in Wales, if you have
respect unto the several quantities of the countries. Howbeit, as they are
very profitable in the summer half of the year, so are a number of them
which lie low and near to great rivers to small commodity in the winter
part, as common experience doth teach. Yet this I find of many moors, that
in times past they have been harder ground, and sundry of them well
replenished with great woods that now are void of bushes. And, for the
example hereof, we may see the trial (beside the roots that are daily
found in the deeps of Monmouth, where turf is digged, also in Wales,
Abergavenny, and Merioneth) in sundry parts of Lancashire, where great
store of fir hath grown in times past, as I said, and the people go unto
this day into their fens and marshes with long spits, which they dash here
and there up to the very cronge into the ground. In which practice (a
thing commonly done in winter), if they happen to smite upon any fir trees
which lie there at their whole lengths, or other blocks, they note the
place, and about harvest time (when the ground is at the driest) they come
again and get them up, and afterward, carrying them home, apply them to
their uses. The like do they in Shropshire with the like, which hath been
felled in old time, within seven miles of Salop. Some of them foolishly
suppose the same to have lien there since Noah's flood: and other, more
fond than the rest, imagine them to grow even in the places where they
find them, without all consideration that in times past the most part, if
not all, Lhoegres and Cambria was generally replenished with wood, which,
being felled or overthrown upon sundry occasions, was left lying in some
places still on the ground, and in process of time became to be quite
overgrown with earth and moulds, which moulds, wanting their due sadness,
are now turned into moory plots. Whereby it cometh to pass also that great
plenty of water cometh between the new loose swart and the old hard earth,
that being drawn away by ditching and drains (a thing soon done, if our
countrymen were painful in that behalf) might soon leave a dry soil to the
great lucre and advantage of the owner. We find in our histories that
Lincoln was sometime builded by Lud, brother to Cassibelan, who called it
Cair Ludcoit, of the great store of woods that environed the same: but now
the commodity is utterly decayed there, so that if Lud were alive again he
would not call it his city in the wood, but rather his town in the plains:
for the wood (as I hear) is wasted altogether about the same. The hills
called the Peak were in like sort named Mennith and Orcoit--that is, the
woody hills and forests. But how much wood is now to be seen in those
places, let him that hath been there testify if he list; for I hear of no
such store there as hath been in time past by those that travel that way.
And thus much of woods and marshes, and as far as I can deal with the
same.