the agreement made by Charles I. with Sir John Winter in
1640, according to which about 4,000 acres of Crown land was to be taken
in and attached to the bordering parishes in lieu of their rights of
commonage; and in conformity with the principle of this agreement, the
Commissioners recommended "that these commonable rights should be
comprised in some general arrangement for the purpose of a commutation."

The last subject the Commissioners notice is the stone-quarries, which
persons born within the hundred of St. Briavel's claimed the right of
opening in the waste lands of the Forest, on payment of a fee of three
shillings to the gaveller, and an annual rent of three shillings and
fourpence, according to the custom of at least the last hundred years, a
period too long to justify the withdrawal of any existing gale, unless by
compensation. Hence all that the Commissioners found themselves
justified in recommending to the Crown, with the view of putting the
working of the stone-quarries on a better footing, was to re-issue gales
on liberal leases to all parties born within the hundred who applied for
the same within a specified time.

In bringing their labours to a close, the Commissioners urge the
necessity of passing an Act for definitively settling the several
particulars to which their inquiries had been directed, adding that it
would be well to incorporate the offices of Constable of St. Briavel's
Castle, and Warden of the Forest, with the office of Woods, lest they
should be found to interfere with its future administration, at that time
under the charge of Lord Duncannon, B. C. Stephenson, Esq., and A. Milne,
Esq.; and this was accordingly done in the following year.

We gather from Mr. Machen's memoranda that the nurseries in the Forest at
this time (1835) contained:--

Oak. Chesnut. Larch. Scotch. Spruce. Ash. Quick.
310,000 1,300 66,500 74,700 5,300 120,000 124,000 total.
200,000 1,300 40,000 40,000 5,300 10,000 30,000 fit to
plant out.

and, moreover, that 276,054 trees of various kinds had been planted out
during the previous winter.

On the 27th of July, 1838, the Royal Assent was given to "an Act for
regulating the opening and working of mines and quarries in the Forest of
Dean, and Hundred of St. Briavel's, by the agency of a Board of
Commissioners." Thomas So