PLANTING. 87 



The above mode of preparing the soil would afford seventy-three days 

 work an acre to labourers, at two shilling's a day, chiefly in that portion of 

 the year when labour is least in demand, viz., from the middle of Sep- 

 tember until April. Were fifty acres set apart every year on an average 

 from each of the royal forests, and planted according to the plan now- 

 recommended, there being twelve royal forests situated in the counties of 

 Southampton, Gloucester, Essex, Northampton, Berks, Chester, Oxford, 

 Durham, and Kent, labour or work alike profitable to the unemployed and 

 to the country would thus be given to six hundred men in the parishes and 

 neighbourhood in which such lands are situated. The profitable results, 

 as regards the attainment of the principal object in view, viz., timber of 

 the best quality the soils employed are capable of affording, and that in 

 the largest quantity on a given space of land, and in the shortest period 

 of time, have already been discussed and shewn to follow the mode of cul- 

 ture described. 



There is stated to be but one-sixteenth part of the timber used at the 

 royal yards supplied by the extensive forests of the crown, the other filFteen- 

 sixteenths having to be purchased from private estates, and from abroad. 

 There is good reason to believe the planting and rearing of oak and of hard 

 wood in general have not kept pace in England with the consumption of 

 that article. The policy of depending on foreign countries for an article of 

 such paramount importance as that of timber for naval and civil architec- 

 ture, need not be discussed in these pages. But let us consider, however, 

 whether the forests abroad are always to remain unexhausted for our 

 demands, or the supply of our wants herein, while the neglect of planting 

 continues ; we believe not ; and that other countries will, at no very 

 distant period, be in the condition that the North American states now 

 are, as regards the supply of timber from their natural forests. That 

 condition is described by an accurate observer, A. H. Hillhouse, a citizen 

 of the United States, and the translator of Michaux's * North American 

 Sylva.' His words are, ' Though three-fourths of our soil (North 

 America) are still veiled from the eye of day by primeval forests, the best 

 materials for building are nearly exhausted. With all the projected im- 

 provements in our internal navigation, whence shall we procure supplies 

 of timber fifty years hence for the continuance of our marine ? The most 

 urgent motives call imperiously upon government to provide a seasonable 

 remedy for the evil : from a government like ours, which is a faithful 

 expression of the public will, and which has no concern but the prosperity 

 and honour of the nation, and from which prospective wisdom is reason- 

 ably demanded.' 



It is observed by Mr. Loudon, in his Encyclopaedia of Gardening, 

 that 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 ; and 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 considered the best to cultivate without exception, nor extraordinary 

 profits calculated prospectively on any crop whatever. 



This opinion, however just, as applied to annual or biennial crops, is 

 but slightly applicable to forest planting, and, indeed, not at all as regards 

 the planting of waste or inferior soils, because, as before stated, the value 

 of a crop of timber or of a forest plantation depends not alone on the rela- 

 tive or positive worth of the timber itself, as is the case with the kinds of 

 crops alluded to, but also greatly on the circumstances of improving the 

 climate and the soil of the adjoining lands, fitting them for the growth of 



