ch, and Tufton, paying a
rental to the Crown of 104 pounds, and Morgan's Folly Colliery, rented at
4 pounds.

Proceeding to the year 1848, the Report of the Commissioners of Woods,
which appeared in September, informs us that upwards of 18,000 acres in
the district of the Forest were covered with wood and timber.
Unfortunately blight again prevailed, of which in the month of June Mr.
Machen's MS. records:--"The oak-trees have been attacked for several
years past by a small caterpillar which eats all the leaves, and this
year the destruction has been greater than ever; the whole Forest has
been almost leafless; the high ground and the low, the large timber and
the young plantations, have all suffered alike. The first time I noticed
this blight was in 1830, when the High Meadow woods and many parts of the
Forest suffered, but it was principally confined to the large timber. It
has continued more or less every year since, but this has been the worst
year of any; yet it is remarkable that the High Meadow Woods are free
from it and in fine foliage, but no part of the Forest has escaped. The
grub, a little black caterpillar, comes to life just as the oak is coming
into leaf, and feeds upon the leaves. It attacks no other tree; the
beech, chesnut, &c., stand in full verdure surrounded by the brown and
leafless oaks. They envelop the tree in a web they spin about the end of
May; they enclose themselves in a leaf curled up, and remain in a
chrysalis state until the middle of June or July, when they change into a
pale greenish small moth that flies about the trees in myriads, and lay
their eggs in the bark of the trees for future mischief, and then die.
There seems to be no means of checking their ravages. The rooks come in
great numbers, and they and other birds destroy great quantities. The
trees put forth a second foliage at the midsummer shoot, but not full,
and the shoot of the year and the growth of the trees must be injured."

Under the date of the 30th of April, 1849, Messrs. John Clutton and
Richard Hall report to the Government, on the Forest of Dean, that "there
are about five hundred acres of the open Forest now covered with old
timber, which is for the most part very fine and of very large size, and
is nearly all of good quality. Our opinion is that a large portion of
this timber is fit for naval purposes, and we suppose it to be worth
49,000 pounds. Its precise age we are not enabled to discover, but our
i