118 HEDGE-ROW TIMBER. 



devoted to the supervision of the Woods, Plant- 

 ations and Hedge Rows, &c. He should be a 

 well-educated and an intelligent man ; and should 

 be so well-paid for his services, as to feel that his 

 employer has a moral claim upon him, for the en- 

 tire devotion of his mind, as well as his physical 

 powers, to the efficient discharge of his duties. 



An inquiry into the natural history of Hedge- 

 row Timber, if I may so speak of it, would furnish 

 a field for highly interesting remark, and it would 

 assuredly remove any doubts that might remain in 

 the minds of those who have gone no farther than 

 to suspect that the management of it has been bad. 

 When it is considered that the Timber of our 

 Hedges is the product of chance, or even worse 

 than that, that it has grown to what it is, notwith- 

 standing that it has been subjected to the most 

 barbarous treatment ; it is impossible not to per- 

 ceive, that if it had been watched and tended as it 

 ought to have been, it would have equalled any 

 thing that could have been conceived of it. 



The classes of trees which may be met with in 

 our Hedge-rows are various, and are so situated in 

 many places, as to really give rise to the idea just 



