ANCIENT WOODS. 27 



met with some of this description to treat with 

 the contempt which it deserves the vulgar med- 

 dling, the idle tattle of those who are ever ready 

 to say, when timber is felled, that the owner's 

 poverty, and not his will, consents to the deed, we 

 are furnished with abundance of reasons for the 

 serious waste of property that is going on, but the 

 woodman is not in fault, neither ought he to be 

 blamed. Lastly: if proprietors commit the man- 

 agement of their woods to persons who are wholly 

 incompetent as is too often the case to discharge 

 the duties confided to them, I cannot see that the 

 men are to be condemned, but rather their em- 

 ployers. Wherever such " mismanagement " 

 prevails as I have attempted to describe, and 

 have seen so much cause to lament, it may gene- 

 rally, I think, be traced, either to ignorance on the 

 part of woodmen, or inattention on the part of 

 their employers : but it will be quite clear to all, 

 who will allow themselves time to think on the 

 subject, that the grossest mismanagement is to be 

 met with, not on first, nor even on second^ but 

 on third, and fourth-rate estates, where regular 

 woodmen are not kept, and below that grade 



