56 PLANTATIONS. 



result, and which do result, from the absence of 

 early attention, are to be seen quite as strongly 

 marked in the last, as in the other two. 



In numerous instances and this I shall call 

 mistake the first the trees are put in without 

 any previous preparation of the soil. It is not 

 possible, in the ordinary run of cases, to commit 

 a greater error than this. It is, emphatically, to 

 build upon a bad foundation, and it is very rarely 

 indeed that Plantations, so commenced, ever make 

 any thing out. When I say this, I do not mean 

 to assert that they never become trees of any size : 

 unfortunately they do, in some situations, and men 

 are so ignorant there is so little real scientific 

 knowledge of the subject to be met with any- 

 where that the most erroneous conclusions are 

 drawn from this fact. The question as to what a 

 Plantation might have done, or what it ivould 



have done, if it had been properly treated, is never 





 thought of! No one ever dreams of instituting a 



comparison between such a Plantation as it is, 

 and as it ought to have been. And yet this is the 

 very first question which should be asked, or 

 rather which should be anticipated. 



