PLANTING. 59 



In order to have at all times the most convenient as well as the most 

 pleasant access to the interior of the plantation, rides or broad drives 

 should be marked out and left implanted. On heaths and gravelly soils 

 the surface is in general so level and unbroken as to require the lines or 

 edges of the rides merely to be cut out in the form of a shallow water-course, 

 any inequalities of the surface to be made good with the turf or earth taken 

 out. In damp, clayey soils, the rides should be made higher in the middle 

 and sloping on each side to an open drain, marking the line of each side*. 

 The earth should be made fine and sown with the following grass seeds, 

 viz., Alopecurus pratensis, Dactylis glomeratct, Lolium perenne, Ci/nosurus 

 cristatus, Phleum pratense, Anthoxanthum odoratum, Poatrivialis, Fc.stuca 

 pratemis, with red and white clovers combined, at the rate of four bushels 

 and a half to an acre. For dry, sandy, heath soils, which can scarcely be 

 covered with verdure, the following will be found effectual : Festuca 



year of growth, the annual rate of increase in height is found to be reduced to inches 

 instead of yards or feet, and at the age of thirty or forty years it may be said to cease 

 altogether to advance in stature ; while the oak, which has before this period overtopped 

 the locust, continues its comparatively steady annual increase for a century. And, with 

 certain modifications of the rate of annual increase between the first, and subsequent stages 

 of growth to perfection, the same principles will apply to the willow (), poplar, alder, 

 birch and the pine tribe, on the one hand, and to the oak, chestnut, elm, beech, ash, &c., 

 on the other. 



(a) The Bedford willow (Salix Russelliana) when planted on a damp, clayey loam, on 

 a rising site, has been observed by the writer of this to attain to the height of thirty feet in 

 five years, but after that the annual rate of increase diminished to incbes, and tben the 

 tree became in appearance stationary. The celebrated willow in Staffordshire, known 

 under the name of Doctor Johnson's Willow, is of this species. Since the above was 

 sent to the press we have had the gratification of perusing the Solid um Woburneme, or 

 a catalogue of the willows indigenous and foreign in the collection of the Duke of Bedford, 

 at Woburn Abbey. This contains the fullest account of all the different species of this 

 interesting tribe of plants that has yet appeared. As regards the willow above alluded to, it 

 is observed in the introduction to the work by the noble author, that ' the Rev. Mr. Dickenson 

 assured Sir James Smith and myself that the great willow at Lichfield (commonly called 

 Johnson's willow, from a belief that it had been planted by him) was of this species. 

 Dr. Johnson never failed to visit this willow when he went to Lichfield.' In 1781 it was 

 reported to be nearly eighty years old, and Mr. Dickenson says, ' the venerable sage de- 

 lighted to recline under its shade.' The noble author further observes, ' I can state another 

 instance from my own personal knowledge of this species of willow attaining a great size 

 within the ordinary period of a man's life. A willow-tree on the south lawn at Gordon 

 Castle, in Scotland, was planted by the late Duke of Gordon about 1765; it was then in 

 a small box four feet square, floating on the surface of the lake, and shortly sank on the 

 spot, where it took root. The lake has long since disappeared, and the tree was blown 

 down in a storm on the 24th November, 1826, the tree being then sixty-one years old. I 

 examined this tree a few years ago, and found it to be the Salix Russelliana of Sir J. E. 

 Smith.' Sulictum Woburnense, Introduction, vi. 



* At Blair Adam, in many instances, the plantations were originally made with broad 

 rides; in others where that was omitted in the original planting, it has been accomplished 

 by cutting out the trees. These, while the plantations were young, served the double 

 purpose of access, for the convenience of carrying out the thinnings and for pleasure, 

 because then it was possible to proportion the loading of the carriage, by putting a greater 

 or smaller number of trees, according to the state of the rides in point of moisture or 

 distance ; but now that one tree makes a load, and that its weight cannot be diminished, 

 the injury done to the ridings was so great as to impede both the convenience and tbe 

 pleasure of the rides, and great expense was incurred in putting them in repair. To 

 avoid this, what are called wood or thinning lanes have been adopted, by cutting out 

 trees in proper lines for them ; this shortens distances to the place of deposit (for rides 

 are always circuitous) and is of benefit to the woods by admitting air more generally, care 

 being taken that they are so twisted as not to incur the risk of being blown down. It is 

 proposed (as they are easily got) to fill the rutts with broken stones. Where slones are 

 not easily to be got, the rutts might be filled with trees not otherwise useful, so as to 

 make a sort of coarse railway. This plan will, in the end, save a great deal of expense 

 and labour, and secures at all times the proprietor's access to the woods and his seeing 

 what is going on. 



