The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1871-04-25 00:00:00

LYNDIIUSST.

THA BOUNDLZIIB Or MA New FOIMAT have never
been accurately ascertained, but it may be described in
general terms as weepy's, the centre of a district con-
tained between the Avon, the southernmost tributary
of the Test, and the sea, and separated from them by a
ring of AHMera from one to five miles in breadth. Its
acreage is also uncertain: but the total area measures
about 63,031 acres, of which 2,089 acres are the demean,
lends of the Crown ; about 27,000 acres are now more
or less covered with wood, natural or planted; the
remainder is moorland. The moors are situate to the
south, west, and north-west, and consist of a series of
tabular plains sad heaths, elevated between 100 and
420 feet above the sea-level, and sloping towards the
smith at the rate of 18-34 feet in the mile. The regu-
larity of the tartan is very remarkable; but the flanks
are extensively cut up by the deseending stream. The
plains are continuous, and form the northern and
north-western portions of the forest, their elevation
varies from 250 to 490 feet, so that they form its water-
shed. The heaths, which occupy the math, are much
lower, with a mean level of about 100 feet, and have
been pierced by the streams that drain the forest—The
Avon Waters and the rivers of Boldre and Beaulieu. En-
closed between the high moorland and the manors that
fringe Southampton Water,lies the woodland of the
Forest—a suoneaton of basins with radiating valleys sepa-
rated by bold ridges projecting from the highlands, or by
Isolated hills, often flat-topped and oovered,with gravel.
Geologists are of opinion that this portion of the
Forest has been scooped out of a plateau, continuous
with the moors around, by the winter wins, and
fglly prepared for the reception of Its native wood-
rty the removal of an obstructive covering of
barren gravel. It is needless to enter upon geological
questions whin have been sufficiently disausaed else-
where ; but this view may well be borne in mind, as a
sine to the general appearance and the possible uses of
tt,e New Fereat. Hero it mei earn to suggest and
explain the intimate connection between the physical
features of the region and the distribution of its vegeta-
tion. The valleys and the vegetation increase Weather ;
as the stream deepens and eol4rg3s the seed-bed, the
barren heath loses itself in the broadening woodland;
as the woodland °limbs the slope, the oak and beech
&lire w. y to holing and thorns, and these, in thole
turn, to the gorse and heather of the flats. The nearer
to heaven the humbler the plants. Several varieties
of heather share with mosses and fleabane the niggard
soil of the plains—a black, peaty earth, which
being held together by root fibres, is out for fuel, and
rot/called turf. The patches of earth and a peculiar
white gravel thus laid bare harbernr a few self-sown fir-
kins much bitten by the cattle. But this" wild and
beetby scene" is neither lonesome nor dreary, its
eommanding height secure. for it every charm that
distant prospeen, exhilarating al., and a sense of un-
limited fre dom on give. The eye, ranging wide over
the hollow woodland, and Santbanapton Water or the
Solent, rests on the soft outline of the Isle of Wight;
the view in other directions is bounded by the far bills
of Purbeck, or the nearer downs of Wiltshire, from
amongst which rises the" dim dinovered spire" of
Saner/ Cathedral. In summer, the heather and
gorse interweave their people and gokl, and the cattle
of the eonamonsrs, driven by the cattle from the woods
below, stud the heath or eon&regate around the open
, ponds. Although the once-famPlar herds of deer rye
' there no longer, the ponied and cattle nearly knee leap
in the water—
A link sky ,
Gulled Ina world below—
or grouped upon its engirding =rein of close turf,
, stand all but motionless in the glee 'mg sunshine—
, subjeote to Inspire a Cooper or a Cuyp.—Mr. 0. K.
Briscoe Eyre in the Unsightly Review.