[ Py 2) 
dock-yards for a feafon with naval timber from in- 
land countries impervious heretofore) will of them- 
felves exhauft thefe woods upon their borders, nearly 
asquick as they rife. Theirlocks arenumerous; their 
bridges infinitely more fo; their barges as capacious 
as the brewers’ tuns: the planking of one and all 
may poflibly be fawed out of full-grown timber, as 
may be their ribs and braces ; but the ftancheons of 
of their bridges, with the levers which raife them 
up and fhut their locks, are formed of the buts of 
young thriving oaks, meting from ten to perhaps 
twelve feet per ftick. 
This is nipping hope in its bud. This is the 
mifchief we are bound to guard againft. Hence 
arifes the dread of want. 
As a purchafer, as a meafurer of oak timber (both 
of which for private ufe, as faras a confiderable ex- 
tent of mill and water works requires, lacknowledge 
myfelf to have been,) I readily yield to your cor- 
refpondent, who has dealt on a larger fcale, the 
pre-eminence due to him. But, bred near a dock- 
yard, nurtured in a foreft, and habituated to ob- 
fervations on the growth of timber from my very 
childhood to the age of fixty-three, ftronger proof 
of plenty than the mere aflertions of any one muft 
be produced, before I can difbelieve my eyes, or 
give up my opinion that fcarcity is at hand, cor- 
roborated as I find it by the returns of able furveyors, 
employed by the Commiffioners of the land-revenue_ 
in 
