PLANTATIONS. 83 



Instead of the trees intended for timber being 

 nursed with the tenderest care from their infancy 

 instead of their being treated according to the 

 known and fixed laws which regulate, and effec- 

 tually control, the economy of vegetable life, 

 whether men attend to them or not they too 

 frequently meet with treatment which is in direct 

 opposition to those laws. I shall show this as 

 clearly, and as plainly, as I can. 



When a gentleman has decided to plant, when 

 he has fixed upon the right mode of doing it, 

 and has finished it in a proper manner ; so far he 

 has done all that could be expected from him ; 

 but if, after this, he leaves his Plantation to itself 

 for five, ten, or fifteen years, he transgresses the 

 laws to which I have referred; and his error is 

 one of omission. 



Again: were the same gentleman, after the 

 lapse of ten years, or even less, to enter his Plant- 

 ation, and cut and thin very freely, he would 

 violate those laws by an error of commission, and 

 in this case, as well as the other, the Plantation 

 would very materially suffer. 



