PLANTATIONS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 41 



successful, the influences of climate should be taken 

 relatively into account as much as possible ; for, 

 where one tree will not answer, another will ; and a 

 certain amount of observation and attention will soon 

 enable a correct estimation to be formed of the kind 

 of trees needed for each situation, and aspect. 



Although as timber trees, nearly the whole of 

 these are very valuable in individual instances, taken 

 collectively they cannot be grown so profitably as 

 plantations of pine, larch, or Scotch fir, for obvious 

 reasons ; one of the principal of which is, that they 

 would occupy valuable agricultural land, while the 

 other kinds I have mentioned can be grown in ex- 

 tensive plantations, which, otherwise occupied, would 

 yield but a trifling return. 



This is well understood by the large planters who 

 have made this subject a matter of study, but it is one 

 which is comparatively unknown to those whose 

 operations in this direction have been only on a very 

 limited scale. 



During the sixteenth century plantations began 

 to be extensively t formed in Britain, for timber and for 

 ornamental purposes, though many of the timber trees 

 are supposed to have been introduced into England 

 by the Romans. Turner, who published his "Herbal" 

 about the middle of the sixteenth century, upon 

 different occasions notices the introduction of the 

 evergreen cypress, the common spruce fir, the stone 

 pine, the sweet bay, and_the walnut ; and towards the 

 end of the sixteenth century Gerrard published the 

 first edition of his catalogue, which includes the pine- 

 aster, the laburnum, and a number of the smaller 

 trees and shrubs which he had collected in his physic 



