364 Obfervations on the Advantages 
addreffed to the Society in London, for the 
encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Com- 
merce, and inferted in Vols. V. and VI. of 
that Society’s Tranfactions. 
_ An acquaintance of mine who formerly re- 
fided near Butsfield, before Mr. White began 
his plantation, told me, that no land ever ex- 
hibited a more forbidding appearance, and that 
it was a prevailing notion in the country 
that the fum expended for its improvement 
would be thrown away: an opinion, to which, 
at the time, he was much inclined to accede. On 
his return, however, after an abfence of a few 
years, with equal pleafure and furprize, he be- 
held the fpot which he had left a barren wafte; 
covered with goodly trees, at once an honour 
and benefit to the fpirited undertaker, and an 
ornament to the country. 
Thofe who forbear to plant their heath or 
moor-lands, from a fuppofition that they are 
incapable of rearing trees, may take an ex- 
ample of the fallacy of that idea, from the 
thriving ftate of the plantation which the 
Duke of Bedford has raifed on Woburn - 
fands.— A few years ago, the ground was 
a barren wafte of hungry, fterile, devour- 
ing fand, which fearcely yielded fuftenance to 
a blade of grafs—the laft time I paffed the place 
it was changed into a wood of healthy thriving 
firs. I mention this young and {mall plantation, _ 
becaule 
