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for it is with planters as with gardeners, the one 

 thins not his trees, nor the other his fruit, till the 

 mifchief has been donej we fuffer them to remain 

 and impair each other, before we have refolution to 

 difplace themj and at laft perform the bufinefs ill 

 or fparingly ;* not reflecfting, that one prime oak, 

 or one prime beech, is worth a fcore of ftarvelings. 

 yjde Mr. Nichols's Accoynt of ^ Plantation ii\ 

 New Foreft. » 



In plantations thus begun, however divefled of 

 incumbrances in • the advanced ftages of their 



* I remember a circular thicket of oaks on an eminence, which 

 had at a dillance the raoft pleafmg effeft, afTuming the appearance 

 of one immenfe round head, reaching almoll to the ground. On a 

 ijearer approach, the ftems of the clulter became vifible, but flood 

 fo thick, that like the famous Indian Fig, they feemed to form a 

 congeries uniting in one trunk. When amongft them, however, 

 they were from 4 to 6 feet apart, drawn up to the height of 50 feet 

 or more, but fo ilender as not to exceed 6 inches diameter in the 

 middle of their fliafts. They were great favourites of their owner, 

 who fet the acorns whilft a boy under the dire^ljon of his father, 

 in whole time they had been thinned twice, and once by himfelf 

 afterwards j on my lamenting that they had fo little fpace alloted 

 them, he acknowledged more room would have been better, and 

 \^ a few years after thinned them rafhly, taking away two-thirds at 

 once, which he fold for 7s. a piece, leaving the beft, as he thought, to 

 improve. But thefe, divefted of their fupporters, bent like reeds 

 before the wind, and after every fudden guft, reverberating forcibly, 

 clafhed their branches one againft the other till dafhed to pieces, 

 thofe in the outer ring alone efcaping. This hopeful grove of plants 

 ^hus periflied at h^lf growth for want of early thinning. 



growth, 



