940 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



Sect. III. Of the Profits of Planting. 



6776. From the seemingly distant advantages of planting has arisen the practice, by 

 authors, of presenting statements of the profits, pleasures, and honors attending it, 

 with a view to excite the selfish or patriotic feelings of their readers. " The profits of 

 planting," says Marshall, " are great, when properly executed, and this idea adds 

 solidity to the enjoyment. Pleasure alone may satiate; but profit and pleasure united 

 seldom fail of producing a lasting gratification." Every one who has the least taste 

 for country matters, must be alive to the agreeable and satisfactory feelings with which 

 plantations are formed ; and certainly there is something disinterested and respectable 

 in incurring a present expense for what in most cases is to benefit a future generation ; 

 but as to the extraordinary profits, either of a near or far distant period, they are by no 

 means to be depended on. With respect to the absolute profit to be derived from trees 

 or plantations, considered independently, it is easy, by a calculation founded on a seem- 

 ingly very moderate data, to make the clear gain attending the raising of any crop ap- 

 pear considerable ; and, accordingly almost every speculative cultivator, whether of corn 

 or trees, calculates on making a fortune in a very few years, as soon as he can get pos- 

 session of a farm or a tract of waste. The truth is, however, that though accidental 

 circumstances may render it more profitable to cultivate one kind of crop, either of 

 trees or corn, at one time and place rather than another ; yet, on the whole, the profits 

 of capital employed in any way in agriculture or planting must, on the general average, 

 be nearly the same. The certain lapse of time which must ever intervene between the 

 planting of trees and their attaining a disposable size, must alone render any calculation 

 made at the time of planting, extremely problematical. In planting, as in every other 

 branch of culture, extraordinary profit is attended by extraordinary production, which 

 soon sinks the market value of the article ; add also, that in a commercial, free and 

 highly taxed country, whenever any article attains a very high price, substitutes are 

 found at home, or imported from abroad ; so that no particular crop should be consi- 

 dered as exclusively the best to cultivate, and no extraordinary profits ever calculated on 

 from any crop. Plantations should be made with a joint view to all or part of the ad- 

 vantages which we have shown to be attendant on them ; but no more ultimate profit 

 calculated on, from the disposal of the trees, than what is expected from capital laid out 

 on any other territorial improvement ; indeed, the safest principle on which to act, is to 

 consider capital employed in planting, as on a par with that laid out in the purchase of 

 landed property. 



6777. With respect to the value of trees as plantations, or in masses, that is entirely relative ; and must be 

 sought for in the additional value conferred on the adjoining lands by the improvement of their climate, or 

 their beauty. This sort of value cannot easily be subjected to any general rules of estimation ; but unques- 

 tionably capital employed in planting and cultivating trees for such purposes, especially for the former, or 

 when they are both united, may be considered as likely in the end to yield a greater interest than that em- 

 ployed in the ordinary routine of tree or corn culture. In bleak exposed situations, the advantages which 

 have arisen from screen plantations have in some cases been so great as to be estimated at a third of the 

 value of the land, and in every case where shelter is wanted they must be considerable. These, however, 

 should be looked on by the prudent man rather in the light of extraordinary cases, attended by unforeseen 

 risks, and though depending chiefly on skill, yet in some degree also on chance. 



Chap. II. 

 Of the different kinds of Trees and Plantations. 



6778. Having considered the different objects for which trees and plantations are cul- 

 tivated, our next step shall be to arrange trees and plantations, according to their qualities, 

 for fulfilling these objects. 



Sect. I. Of the Classification of Trees relatively to their use and effect in Landscape. 



6779. Timber is the grand object for which trees are cultivated, and it is either straight 

 or crooked in form, large or small in dimension, hard, soft, or resinous in quality, brittle 

 or flexible in texture, smooth or rough grained, and plain-colored or variegated in 

 appearance. 



6780. Straight timber is chiefly produced by the pine and fir tribes, and such other trees whose lateral 

 branches do not generally acquire a timber size, as the Lombardy poplar, hornbeam, deciduous cypress. 



6781. Crooked timber may be produced by any branching tree ; but chiefly by the oak, sweet chestnut, 

 broad-leaved elm, walnut, &c. 



6782. Timber of large dimension, in regard to length, is produced by the spruce fir, larch, Lombardy 

 poplar, ash, narrow-leaved elm ; in regard to diameterby the oak, sweet chestnut, and elm ; magnitude in 

 both dimensions is united in the narrow-leaved elm, beech, oak, and larch fir. 



6783. Timber of small dimensions is produced by the yew, holly, thorn, ash, maple, laburnum, \c 



6784. Timbers, hard in quality, or, what are called the hard woods, are the oak, chestnut, sycamore, ash, 

 beech, plane, walnut, box, holly, yew, &c. Softer timbers, or the soft woods, are the poplar, willow, lime, 



