INTRODUCTION. 1X 
minds, by all the known means in their power. Local 
improvement, by labour and ftudy, is a kind of inferior 
creation, which the Creator of the Univerfe feems to have 
appointed, as the proper and moft dignified employment of 
man; neceflarily referving to him/elf the perpetual fupply of 
that principle of life and bleffing, by which alone it can be 
carried on! Drearinefs and barrennefs are. the comparative 
deformity of his works, and partly defigned as the natural 
exemplification of an uncultivated mind. © Plantation, as a 
provifion for verdure, beauty, and ufefulnefs, is the duty of 
the higheft inhabitant of the foil. It is evidently conducive 
to univerfal benefit. It provides for the fecurity and comfort 
of animated nature. It is one vifible, exterior mean of 
maintaining an intelleétual intercourfe with the exalted 
Author of all life, and all benediétion!—The beauty of 
Oriental defcription may be remembered with peculiar ad- 
vantage—“ Inftead of the thorn fhall come up the fir-tree; 
“ and inftead of the brier fhall come up the myrtle-tree;”” and 
(as CovERDALE renders it) ‘this fhall be done to the 
“ praife of the Lorn, and for an everlafting token.” 
To apply thefe mementos to our own profit, let us confi- 
der the abundant improvements that await the hand of in- 
genious activity in our country. Not only inclofures may 
be benefited by ornamental fhelter for cattle, if judicioufly 
difpofed, and unfriendly blafts broken from numerous corn- 
fields;* but if we extend our views of improvement to 
* The writer is fortified in his opinion of the vaft importance of 
a judicious plantation of rows and clumps of trees in open coun- 
tries, by the declarations of men of the firft eminence in corn-farm- 
ing. It having been often obferved, how great the difference is in 
the crops between thofe parts where a fimilar noxious wind is 
broken, and where unobffrudied in its courfe, in the fame line of ex- 
pofure.—By obfervation, moft old inhabitants and fervants, on the 
fame 
