Despite the fact that the Deer Removal Act had made sweeping changes, many people still expected more drastic change to come. The reasoning was simple: if the Office of Woods and the commoners couldn't agree about how to share the Forest, then why not partition the whole place once and for all? The commoners could have their land, the Office of Woods their inclosures, and they need never trouble each other again - the big problem being to ensure that one side did not get all the best land at the expense of the other.

'I refer, of course,' Albion went on, 'to Mr Cumberbatch's famous letter.'

Famous. Infamous. It was perhaps unfair that this document - a private letter to his superiors pointing out the most advantageous position for them to take - should have been made public. But in 1854 it had been published in a report on the Forest and everyone had read it. The point that the young Deputy Surveyor made was clever and brutal. Since there was a good chance the Forest would end by being partitioned, he argued, the Office of Woods should make all its inclosures as fast as possible, on the best land. With that land, for all practical purposes, withdrawn from the equation, the commoners' future share was bound to be worth far less.

'Nothing in the last twenty years has caused such bad feeling,' Albion pointed out. 'The commoners have been told, without a doubt, that it is the intention of the Crown to destroy them. That, Your Lordships, is the politics of the Forest now.'

Did they care? It was hard to know.

'I come now to the material threat.' He looked at them severely. 'Your Lordships must understand the underlying problem. Trees grow best on the richest land and that's where the best grazing is, too. So the tree-growers and the commoning farmers both want the same pieces of the Forest. Secondly, it is often supposed that once you inclose land for trees and let them grow to a certain height you can open the inclosure for grazing again. That's not true. With today's planting methods the trees are grown so close together that little ground cover grows underneath them. The new inclosures are lost to grazing for generations. Inevitably, therefore, the tree-grower seeks to deprive the farmer of his best land, for an indefinite period.'

'You say "seek to deprive", Colonel. Doesn't that presume the Office of Woods to be aggressive in its claims?'

'It is not presumption. I have absolute material proof that it is highly aggressive. That is my point. First, they have frequently said they will enclose their allotted acres, reopen the inclosures later - which I have just explained won't work - and then enclose the same amount all over again. I don't think the Act allows this, but if so, they will plainly end by taking most of the Forest.