STATE AND PROSPECTS OF ARBORICULTURE IN HAMPSHIRE. 521 
the rage that sprung up for grubbing the small coppices and 
hedgerows dividing fields, and so increase the area of the arable 
land, to meet an improved system of husbandry ; and, secondly, 
from the impecuniosity of landowners generally, who had to 
resort to the more extensive felling of timber to meet the de- 
crease, from year to year, of the receipts from the farming land. 
This, at the present time, is still going on, with the exception of 
grubbing up the coppices, which has ceased. But as there is no 
prospect of the arable land increasing in value—on the contrary, 
it does not yet seem to have reached its lowest point—the felling 
of timber must still be going on, and fortunate it is for the land- 
owner who finds himself with a breadth of woodland to fall back 
upon to meet the depression in agriculture. To make up for this 
increased and increasing felling of timber, it has to be reported 
that there is no corresponding increase in the planting or care of 
rearing trees, arising partly from the want of money, and partly 
from the absence of interest in forestry on the part of landowners 
generally ; the ‘‘ heroic line of husbandry,” as Washington Irving 
calls it; and says: “It is worthy of liberal, freeborn, and aspir- 
ing men. He who plants an oak looks forward for future ages, 
and plants for posterity. Nothing can be less selfish than this. 
He cannot expect to sit in its shade, nor enjoy its shelter, but he 
exults in the idea that the acorn which he has buried in the earth 
shall grow up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing, and 
benefiting mankind long after he shall have ceased to tread his 
paternal fields.” Such was the old squire in “ Bracebridge Hall,” 
and it is to be feared that he has left few successors ; for, with 
some experience of the principal estates in the country, I cannot 
find many who have been imbued with the same spirit as their 
fathers. The facilities now afforded for travelling are inimical to 
that attention more than ever necessary for the proper managing 
of landed property. A time was when land could take care of 
itself; but the times are altered, and it is necessary now for 
owners to give more attention to the management of their pro- 
perty than formerly, but unfortunately the reverse is the rule. 
PROSPECT. 
From the foregoing it may be guessed that the writer of this 
does not take a sanguine view of the future. From the peculiar 
position of landowners, and their habits, the management of the 
woods is too much in the hands of men but ill qualified for the 
