FERN
—is a plant abounding plentifully in CHACES, BEECHEN WOODS, and COMMONS, and is a seeming diminutive resemblance of our native bulwark the hardy oak, not more in the similitude of its growth, than its appropriation to various purposes of utility. It not only constitutes excellent bedding for cattle in the winter, but has been considered so instrumental to the PRESERVATION of GAME, that laws have been framed to prevent its being wantonly destroyed, or unseasonably perverted, to the interested purposes of private individuals.
"Any person who shall unlawfully set fire to, burn, or destroy, or assist in so doing, any goss, furze, or fern, upon any FOREST or CHASE within England, he shall, on the oath of one witness before a JUSTICE of the peace, forfeit a sum not exceeding 5l. nor less than 40s. one moiety to the informer, the other to the poor of the parish. The same to be levied by distress; in want of which, the offender to be committed to the house of correction, or county gaol, for a time not longer than three months, nor less than one." In addition to which act, there are other MANORIAL rights and local customs, respecting FERN upon wastes and commons, restraining those who have right of common (or other privileges) from cutting fern before HOLYROOD DAY in every year.