ITS MANAGEMENT 169
Commoners' Rights.—One of the most thorny
questions which the Conservators have to deal
with is the ancient right of pasturage. As the
preservation of the Forest turned upon commoners'
rights it would ill become the Conservators to
make any encroachment upon them. On the
other hand, it is obviously their duty to see that
the Forest is not "surcharged" by commoners'
cattle. In the interest of the commoners them-
selves, and also to preserve the thicket from
undue trampling and browsing, the number of
cattle pastured should not be increased to the
starvation point. The old theory and practice
of the Courts of Attachment, that every rightful
commoner should have some enclosed land in
his own occupation, whereon to maintain his
cattle during the fence month, is a useful
principle to adhere to, even at the present day,
because, although the fence month is not likely
to be enforced, there is very little available feed
in the winter, and unless the cattle which can really
pick up a subsistence in the spring and summer
have other support in the scarce time, they would
inevitably, in the struggle for food, seriously injure
the young trees, while their emaciated forms would
be painful to contemplate.
It is roughly computed that in an average
summer the outside number of cattle, for which
there is sufficient feed, does not exceed 800 or
1000. It is on this account that it has been
determined that the minimum area of land which
entitles to a commoner's right should be half an
acre. At the same time, as it is found that a
large proportion of the commoners do not exercise
their right, the Conservators annually allow to a
number of poor cottagers—about 170 at the
present time—the privilege of having two cows
or one horse marked by the Reeve, and depastured
as though they were commoners. It is desirable
on the one hand that these cottagers, who have
previously exercised this privilege, should not be
deprived of it, and on the other it is in their
interest, as much as of any one else, that there