ers 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