PROTECTION OF WOODLANDS СНАР. I. PROTECTION AGAINST MEN AND HUMAN ACTIONS. II. PROTECTION AGAINST FARM LIVE-STOCK, GAME, AND THE LARGER KINDS OF VERMIN. III. PROTECTION AGAINST DESTRUCTIVE BIRDS. IV. PROTECTION AGAINST INJURIOUS INSECTS. V. PROTECTION AGAINST WEEDS AND PARASITIC PLANTS. VI. PROTECTION AGAINST INJURIES FROM INORGANIC CAUSES. BRITISH LITERATURE. Brown and Nisbet, The Forester, 6th edit., 1894 (chaps. viii. and xii.); R. Hess, Forest Protection (translated by W. R. Fisher, as vol. iv. of Schlich's Manual of Forestry), 1895; Kauschinger and Fürst, Protection of Woodlands (translated by J. Nisbet), 1893. Special portions are dealt with in Miss E. Ormerod's Injurious Insects and in R. Hartig's Diseases of Trees (translated by W. Somerville, and edited by H. Marshall Ward), 1895, while numerous articles on insects and fungi are to be found in the Trans. Royal Scot. Arbor. Socy., and High, and Agri. Socy. of Scot.; in the Jour. Royal Agri. Socy. of Eng., Board of Agriculture, and Royal Hort. Socy. ; in the Gardeners' Chronicle, &c. PROTECTION AGAINST MEN AND HUMAN ACTIONS. THE Protection of Woodlands is the oldest branch of Forestry. It teaches how danger of any sort threatening the wellbeing of timber and other woodland crops can best be prevented or remedied. In Britain protection of forests, after afforestation, took place at first solely for the benefit of the chase; but for over 420 years timber crops have continuously received more or less of legal protection (see vol. i., Introduction, chap. i.) Woodlands require to be protected against injuries caused by men, farm live-stock, game, other animals (vermin), destructive birds, injurious insects, weeds, parasitic plants, and inorganic agencies. And it is perhaps most convenient to deal with this branch of Forestry in the above order. Legislation.—Individual proprietors would be comparatively powerless to prevent malicious injury occasioned by men unless special protection were given to woodlands by Acts of Parliament. In India, France, Germany, &c., there are special forest laws for protecting woodlands against mischief and more serious acts; but in Britain there is no necessity for this, and human actions affecting proprietary rights in woodlands are controlled by the ordinary civil and criminal law. The legal protection now given in Britain to woods and plantations generally is as follows: In 1861 the various statutes dealing with damage to woodlands, trees, and shrubs were consolidated and amended in the Act . . . relating to Larceny and other similar Offences (24 & 25 Vic. cap. 96,-sect. 16, referring to "any Forest, Chase, or Purlieu," and sects. 31 to 33 and 35, referring to "trees and woods "), while protection was at the same time given to ornamental trees and shrubs under the Act relating to Malicious Injuries to Property (cap. 97, sects. 20 to 22 and 53). Under these it was made felony to steal any tree, shrub, or underwood, or to destroy or maliciously injure the same with intent to steal, if the value be £1 in parks, avenues, or pleasure-grounds, or £5 elsewhere; and even if the value be only over 18., on a third offence the larceny becomes a felony, and the malicious injury is then punishable with two years' imprisonment with hard labour. In Continental countries with extensive forests the State goes much further, and enforces rational forest laws for the general welfare. In Bavaria, for example, whenever there is danger of any insect calamity, special orders are enforced for the removal of coniferous timber to over half a mile from the forest, or for barking the logs to prevent attacks of bark-beetles in large numbers. Boundary marks, necessary to indicate where the ownership of one proprietor ceases and that of another begins, should be erected and maintained for easy recognition by all parties concerned. There are marked differences between English and Scots law with regard to fencing. In England— It may be stated as a general rule of law that an owner or occupier of land is not bound to put up or maintain any fence between his own and his neighbour's land, though he must take care that no cattle or anything belonging to him strays or trespasses over the adjoining property. Any obligation to fence can only arise in virtue of a special agreement between the parties. Where two persons are possessed of adjoining fields, though neither is bound to fence as against the other apart from contract, it seems that one might be able to establish a prescriptive right to call on the other to fence. . . . Although, as already stated, the owner or occupier of a field is not strictly bound to fence it, he must abide by the consequences of not doing so. Thus, if land immediately adjoining a highway is unfenced, the owner or occupier cannot complain if cattle stray on to it from the highway, and if they do, he must bear any loss caused thereby. (S. Wright, The Law relating to Landed Estates, 1897, pp. 205-209.) ... Under Scots law a proprietor can force his neighbour to share expenditure on enclosure. The law is as follows: The Act 1661, c. 41, ratified by 1685, c. 39, enables a proprietor to force a conterminous proprietor to concur with him in mutually enclosing their property. And, accordingly, the conterminous heritors must, under this statute, mutually bear the expense of making a march-dyke or proper fence. . . . And in the same manner, fences once made may be kept in repair at the mutual expense of the parties, or, when no longer reparable, may be reconstructed. Where the march is a rivulet, which is not a sufficient fence, a proper fence may be built upon the spot, if it be practicable. The fence may run along one side of the stream, but if it be desired, the stream ought to run a space within the fence and a space without, that both parties may have the benefit of watering. (Bell's Dictionary and Digest of the Law of Scotland, 1890, p. 522.) Boundary marks usually consist of stone walls, pillars, cairns, earthen mounds, stakes, large trees, hedgerows, green lanes, ditches, &c. Though all proprietary rights are ascertainable legally, and are easily recorded in surveys, yet the different portions of landed properties are usually specially marked off by walls, ring-fences, posts with notice-boards, hedgerows, ditches, and the like. These different kinds of boundary vary in durability. Ditches fall into disrepair if not kept in proper order, and wooden posts rot and decay, while hedgerows also change with time, so that stone walls or pillars form on the whole the best, although the dearest, boundary marks. When boundary stones are used for marks at angles, it is best to dress them. Stones rising 3 ft. high and dressed with square heads, on which grooved lines run from the central point to the edge in the direction of the nearest stone on each side, form the best of boundary marks, where woodlands are not enclosed and fenced. Such stones can also bear other marks, such as the initials of the proprietor, or numbers relative to woodland blocks and compartments, &c. Boundary marks should be properly maintained. Repairs are simple at the outset, but if long delayed they often then cause considerable trouble and expense. A revision should be made once a-year, and any discrepancies noted should be immediately rectified. 1 Details about enclosure and fencing will be found in chap. ii. Where the boundary happens to run through woodlands, a line should be cleared broad enough for each stone to be seen from the next, and such narrow lane should be kept clear of boughs, coppice-shoots, shrubs, &c. When the boundary stones run the risk of getting damaged by carts, guardstones should be placed at the sides and in front of them as a protection. A proprietor is entitled to plant as near to the limit of his land as he likes, but the adjoining proprietor has the right to cut such branches as overhang his land. For extensive woodland tracts, such as large State forests, a demarcation register should be kept, showing (1) name of each separate block and compartment, (2) number of boundary marks, (3) distance from mark to mark, (4) angle (in degrees) formed at each mark with the next on each side of it, (5) name of owner and nature of land marching with it, (6) points at which the boundary is intersected by roads, paths, streams, &c. Commonage and Rights of User are practically in British woodlands confined to the Crown forests, which are not the absolute property of the State, but are more or less burdened with rights of commonage. Such rights are of the nature of real property, so far as concerns the compulsory doing of certain acts, or the not doing of certain other acts. In England the rights of commonage, &c., were at one time far more extensive than now; but matters were simplified by the legislation which took place about the end of the eighteenth century (see vol. i., Introduction, p. 26). Throughout most of the Continent of Europe servitudes in woodlands date from early times, when woodland produce was of little money value. They usually originated in agreements between barons and their retainers, or the inhabitants of small neighbouring towns, or in privileges granted in return for special services; or they merely arose from use and custom, unchecked till the market value of the produce made the landowner think it worth while to interfere. Such rights of user or servitudes may sometimes be of greater value than the nominal ownership of the soil, and unless limited they may ultimately extinguish any benefits derivable from possession. The nature and the effects of servitudes over woodlands have little practical interest for Britain as compared with those in foreign countries with large woodlands, and in our colonies and dependencies-e.g., India in particular. Such relate to Timber, for building-trade requirements, fuel, softwoods, dead wood, windfall, stumps, brushwood; Minor Produce, grazing, pasturage, pannage, fallen leaves for litter, tapping for resin, collection of mast and fern, turbary; Other Rights, such as quarrying, mining, right-of-way, right of transport by land and water. Such servitudes frequently debar the owner in possession from utilising the land in a reasonable and economic manner for the production of timber, and sometimes even compel him to adopt an unreasonable system of management, or mismanagement. It is seldom that extensive rights of user can be continued without a great deal of friction between the landowners and those possessing the rights of user. The worst case of this in Britain is in the New Forest, some details concerning which have already been given in vol. i., Introduction, chap. i.1 The Forest of Dean is also, however, burdened with heavy rights, which were thus described in the Report of the Select Committee of 1874: The Forest, as defined under the Act of 1831, comprised about 24,000 acres, which may be divided in this way: First of all, there are freehold lands of the Crown not subject to any rights of common at all; the Crown's private property, I may so say, freed from 1 Fuller details will be found in the article on Forestry and the New Forest, in the Victoria County History of Hampshire, vol. ii., 1903. |