1804. Oft Platitati'.ns, l^c. 323 



FOR THF. IrARMUR's MAGAZINE. 



Ofi Plantations ; atnij principally^ on the advantage of r-ialing Woods 

 and Planting Oak jor under groiuth. 



Plantations of trees may be divided into thr:^e kinds, 



^st^ Grows, which contain timber trees only, with fome 

 pallure. 



2dy CorPiCFs, containing undergrowths only ; whicli are cut 

 over periodically for their produce in bark or fuel, &c. 



3«/, Woods, which contain a mixture of trees with under- 

 growth. The former are allowed to Hand until they are full 

 <;rown ; but the latter is cut over at ftated periods, according 

 to the kind, the foil, and other circumftances. 



Molt PLANTATION'S, particularly in Scotland, though they 

 generally go under the name of woods, are in reality of the 

 grove kind. We find none of the trees kept decidedly under the 

 reft, cut over, and allowed to fpring up again, while a certain 

 number, from 15 to ^o feet diflancey are preferved until their 

 timber is full grown; but, thie trees being once planted, are 

 allowed to grow up together, a few being thinned out where they 

 are too much crowded, though by far too little attention is paid 

 to thinning. Thofe thinned out are either cut over or grubbed 

 out by the roots, as may be molt convenient, without any at- 

 tention to propriety ; and, in confequence of this management, 

 a few bulhes of undergrowth are found in fome plices; and the 

 reft of the ground, if not fiiaJed too much by the crowded trees, 

 is covered with pafture; but neither pafture nor undergrowths, 

 from being intermixed, afford great profit to the proprietor. 



There are other plantations, where undergrowtli exilts among 

 timber trees in a more general way, but of kinds which are of little 

 or no ufe, except for fuel ; and this is far from being a profitable 

 mode of difpofing of wocd, particularly in a coal country. On 

 the other hand, there are woods in fome places where both 

 timber and undergrowth are cultivated ; and it is from feeing 

 the great profits obtained by th*: proprietors of thefe woods that 

 I make the following obfervations on the advantage of raifingoak 

 UNDERGROWTH in Scotland. 



The high price given for oak bark is pretty generally known ; 

 and the value of that produced by an acre of oaks, from twelve 

 to twenty-five years old, is very confiderable. Among the in. 

 itances that occur to me at prefent, the Duke of Athol's, at 

 Dunkeld, appears the moft proper to mention. There, on land 

 worth little or nothing in aration or pafture, are oak woods^ 

 principally natural, the undergrowth o£ which is fold every 



twenty^ 



