t of sole common pasturage and herbage was given to a certain class
of commoners in Ashdown Forest on the partition of the forest at the end
of the 18th century.

Rights in common fields.

We have seen that the common arable fields and common meadows of a vill
were thrown open to the stock of the community between harvest and
seed-time. There is still to be found, here and there, a group of arable
common fields, and occasionally a piece of grass land with many of the
characteristics of a common, which turns out to be a common field or
meadow. The Hackney Marshes and the other so-called commons of Hackney
are really common fields or common meadows, and along the valley of the
Lea a constant succession of such meadows is met with. They are still
owned in parcels marked by metes; the owners have the right to grow a
crop of hay between Lady day and Lammas day; and from Lammas to March
the lands are subject to the depasturage of stock. In the case of some
common fields and meadows the right of feed during the open time belongs
exclusively to the owners; in others to a larger class, such as the
owners and occupiers of all lands within the bounds of the parish.
Anciently, as we have seen, the two classes would be identical. In some
places newcomers not owning strips in the fields were admitted to the
right of turn out; in others, not. Hence the distinction. Similar
divergences of practice will be found to exist in Switzerland at the
present day; _nieder-gelassene_, or newcomers, are in some communes
admitted to all rights, while, in others, privileges are reserved to the
_burger_, or old inhabitant householders.

Rights in royal forests.

Some of the largest tracts of waste land to be found in England are the
waste or commonable lands of royal forests or chases. The thickets and
pastures of Epping Forest, now happily preserved for London under the
guardianship of the city corporation, and the noble woods and
far-stretching heaths of the New Forest, will be called to mind. Cannock
Chase, unhappily inclosed according to law, though for the most part
still lying waste, Dartmoor, and Ashdown Forest in Sussex, are other
instances; and the list might be greatly lengthened. Space will not
permit of any description of the forest system; it is enough, in this
connexion, to say that the common rights in a forest were usually
enjoyed by the owners and occupiers of land within its bounds (the class
may differ in exact definiti