148 On reclaiming Waste Lands. 



tended encouragements have much increased them by rnul-' 

 tiplied plantations, yet their growth may be indefinitely en- 

 larged by an encouragement for their acorn seed to be placed 

 in every raised bank, or their seedlings planted in every new- 

 formed hedge-row; which most efficaciously might be en- 

 forced by parliament as a conditional obligation on all to 

 whom they are assigned, under the statute of a national in- 

 closure. But as every seminary of oaks must be referable 

 to a distant posterity, it becomes worthy of every present 

 planter in the interior of his hedge-rows to have large cut- 

 tings of poplar* and willow f, and an intermixture with 

 young trees of. the /esinous tribe. Those I have already 

 known may be taken down as timber during the life of the 

 planter, and as early as the inlays are grown to afford shelter 

 and shade to the herd and the flock that occasionally feed 

 within their inclosures. I may just add, the fall of the au- 

 tumnal leaf with the manure of the depasturing cattle may 

 continue the fertility of these fields without extraneous aid; 

 and, where not readily procurable, I may further add, that 

 in the latter end of the autumn of 1799 I procured turves 

 from different wastes, reserved them on a gravel walk, and 

 thereon dibbled wheat, almost every grain of which suc- 

 ceeded, branched into divers stems, which severally bore a 

 full and perfect grain. In the autumn of 1800 % I repeated 



• Of poplars, the Nigra, Alha, and T-hjhridum.', this latter hath not, I con- 

 ceive, found its way into any systematical arrangement of plants, and in course 

 has not received any specific character. The name assigned it is on the opi- 

 nion of a gentleman well acquainted with botanic distinction, who conceives 

 it to be a variety, perhaps of the two former. 1 may speak from au enlarging 

 experience, that it is a handsome and fast growing tree, multiplies itself di- 

 jtinctly from its roots, while its cuttings take with nearly e(jual facility as the 

 two former. 



f Peiitandtia (laurel-leaved), Amygdalina (almond leaf), Alia (common 

 gray leaf). These three species I know, or presume, on the progress the first 

 has already made, that they will severally grow to a timber bulk. The pro- 

 epective diversity of contrasted foliage can perhaps be not better exemplified 

 than in the vivid green of the laurel willow and the hoary leaf of the white 

 poplar. 



^ There is an average of four large ears to every grain dibbled, now in full 

 flower, which conveys an expectation of more than an hundred fold increase, 

 the actual increase of the preceding year. These turves or flags have received 

 ao aid from the manure, or any artificial watering. 



the 



