2 PLANTING. 



CHAPTER I. 

 Of some of the Advantages resulting from judicious Planting.^ 



JUDICIOUS planting and the skilful culture of plantations combine national 

 and private interests in an eminent degree ; for, besides the real or intrinsic 

 value of the timber or ostensible crop, with other produce of woods, 

 available for the arts and comforts of life, judicious forest-tree planting 

 improves the general climate of the neighbourhood, the staple of the soil, 

 as regards the gradual accumulation of vegetable matter, affords shelter to 

 live stock, promotes the growth of pasture and of corn crops, beautifies 

 the landscape, and thus greatly and permanently increases the value of 

 the fee simple of the estate and adjoining lands. 



Tf we turn to those soils emphatically termed wastes exposed, elevated 

 lauds, moors, bogs, and sterile sands composing so large a portion of the 

 liritish empire, and naturally clothed by the lowest and least valuable 

 products of the vegetable kingdom, the inferior grasses, mosses, rushes, 

 sedges, ferns, and heaths we find that upon them the more valuable do- 

 mestic animals cannot exist. If we consider the reason why they are so 

 barren, waste, and unproductive, when compared with other lands not 

 more favoured by nature, and under similar circumstances of latitude and 

 elevation, the cause will, in many instances, be found in the want of the 

 shelter and shade of trees, and of the ameliorating influence which 

 plantations exercise on ungenial local climates. 



The essential, permanent pasture grasses cannot be established on naked 

 exposed situations ; but when assisted by the shelter of forest-trees they 

 become permanent and productive. Plantations supply us with with fuel, 

 with materials for fencing, enclosing, building; corn crops, soiling plants, 

 and root crops are obtained in succession under their genial protection. 

 Many thousands of acres now unprofitable to the owners and to the 

 community, might, by judicious planting, be reclaimed, and rendered 

 highly productive; and it may be safely affirmed, that there is hardly a 

 spot of waste land in the kingdom so barren, which by the exercise of 

 skill in planting, and selection of proper species of forest-trees adapted to 

 the soil and exposure, might not be covered with profitable plantations. 



Numerous instances might be cited from different parts of the kingdom 

 v\ here exposed and sterile lands have, by planting, been made capable of 

 producing valuable arable crops and the best pasture grasses, and of 

 rearing and fattening stock of improved breeds. This, in ell'eet, is adding 

 to the territorial extent of a country, to its wealth and strength, by conquest 

 over the natural defects of local climate, soil, and exposure. 



CHAPTER II. 



Of ihr S/nn-turc afTrcm, and <f tin- Natural Ayrnls ?r/iich in/lin-ncc and 

 mi/-/ /i of I /i i' 7Vr////\, from ///< jirriud of (icnninalLon 

 until the 7Y< a I full maturity. 



PLANTS being living organi/ed bodies, a just knowledge of the functions 

 of their vital organs, and of the principal natural agents which influence 

 their progress of growth to maturity, will be found a useful, if not an indis- 

 pensable assistant to guide the practical planter in rearing trees in the most 



