22 ANCIENT WOODS. 



fitting person to have the oversight of them. But 

 such is the ignorance on the part of many, who 

 call themselves woodmen, "and the carelessness of 

 their employers, that there is a total negation of 

 forethought and calculation, instead of every step 

 that is taken having reference to a remote period. 



A nobleman, or gentleman, or his agent, may 

 calculate what will he the effect upon a farm at 

 the expiration of a lease of twenty-one years, if it 

 be not cultivated as it ought to be, and, by intro- 

 ducing certain clauses into the lease, he may 

 secure himself against the certain and serious loss 

 which would accrue to him from bad management ; 

 and he who does not so calculate, has a very in- 

 adequate idea of the nature of the contract which 

 he is about to make ; but the man who takes upon 

 himself the management of woods, and whose views 

 and plans are not extended over several of those 

 cycles of time which intervene between the seasons of 

 cutting, does not rightly comprehend the peculiar 

 duties which he has undertaken to perform, and 

 ought, at once, to be relieved from them, and pro- 

 vided for in some other way ; for if woods are 

 worth having at all, they are worth looking after, 



