jected the rest as useless,
and not worth their charge: this they call their cinder, and is found in
an inexhaustible quantity throughout all the parts of the country where
any glomerys formerly stood, for so they were then called."

CHAPTER IV.
A.D. 1692-1758.

Condition of the Forest described, and management
examined--Depredations--Ninth and tenth orders of the Miners'
Court--Timber injured by the colliers--The Forest in its best state,
1712--Eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth orders of the Miners'
Court--Fourteenth order of the Miners' Court--Swainmote Court
discontinued--Extension of coal-works and injury of trees--Forest
neglected--Fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth orders of the Miners'
Court--Grant of 9200 feet of timber to the Gloucester Infirmary.

Reverting to the general condition and management of the Forest, an
important commission was issued this year, 1692, to the Crown officers
and some of the neighbouring gentry, directing them to examine and
inquire into the six following particulars:--I. The quantity of
coppicewood fit for being cut from year to year for twenty-one years to
come--II. The annual charge for the next twenty-one years of maintaining
the enclosures--III. What the cost would be of disenclosing certain
coal-pits, with which some of the plantations were encumbered--IV. What
the salaries of the Crown officers of the Forest amounted to, and the
cost of making such repairs as the buildings they occupied required--V.
As to the way in which the timber fellings of 1688 had been disposed of,
with the state of the enclosures, if those who had charge of them had
duly protected them from injury--and VI. How far trespass and pounding
had been enforced, or unlawful building permitted.

These were all very important questions, and under the first head, as to
wood fit to be cut for cording, &c., the commissioners report, that
"there are great and valuable quantities of scrubbed beech and birch,
with some holly, hazel, and orle, fit to be cut and disposed of, being
192,000 cords, worth at 4s. 10d., amounting to 46,488 pounds, of which
12,000 cords might be cut every year, worth 2,900 pounds. Or, as the
total quantity of such wood was 615,500 cords, their worth at 4s. 10d.
was 148,745 pounds 16s. 8d., to which 60,000 pounds may safely be added
for future clearings if a twenty-one years' lease be granted. 100 pounds
a year would suffice to keep the enclosures in repair." The
commission