271

OF FOR E ST-TII EES.C II A P. VI.

CHAP. VI.

Of the Laws and Statutes for the Preservation and Improvement of

WOODS and FORESTS .

It Is not to bepaflsed by, that the very first law we fin'd which was ever * The laws ofpromulged, was concerning Trees —and that laws themselves were firstwritten upon them*, or tables composed of them; and after that establish- QuernisTabu-ment in Paradise, the next we meet withal are as ancient as Moses. \ ou ^e^engraveamay find the statute at large in Deut. xx.. 19, 20. which though they in brafs. Seechiefly tended to fruit-trees, even in an enemy’s country, yet you will find Dl0n y s -.a case of necefsity only alleged for the permifsion to destroy any other.

To sum up briefly the laws and civil constitutions of great antiquity,Servius informs us it was no lefs than capital, alienas arbores incidere ; theLex Aqailia, and those of the Twelve Tables mentioned by Paulus, Cujas,. Julianus, and others of that robe, repeated divers more.

It was by those sacred constitutions provided, that none might so muchas plant trees on the confines of his neighbour’s ground, but he was to,leave a space of at the least five feet, for the smallest tree, that they mightnot inj ure him with their shado w. Si arbor in vicini agriwi impendent, earnsublucato, Sic.; and if, for all this, any hung over farther,-it was to bestripped up fifteen feet: And this law Balduinus, Olderdorpius, and Hoto-man recite out of Ulpian , lib. i. F. de Arb. Caedend. where we have thePraetor’s interdict exprefsed, and.the impendent wood adjudged to apper-tain to him whose field or fence was thereby damnified: Nay, the wiseSolon prescribed ordinances for the'very distances of trees, as the divinePlato did against stealing of fruit, and violating of plantations: And theInterdiction de Glande legenda runs thus in Ulpian , AIT PR/E TOR,GLANDEM, QU2E EX 1LLIUS AGRO IN TUUM CAD AT, QUOMINUS ILL! TERTIO QUOQUE DIE LEGERE, AUFERRELICEAT; VIM FIERI VETO. And yet, though by the Praetorspermifsion he might come every third day to gather it up without trespafsAus neighbour was to share of the mast which so fell into his ground !

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