5t6 Cultivation ofGraJs-Lvnd. Plan ting Situations proper icr: 



general, in moft cafes where the foil is poor, if not in the very near vicinity of a 

 town, it may be converted into plantations, if it can be freed from hurtful water 

 with greater profit than any other improvement it could admit of, unlefs in very- 

 particular circumflances, even where it may admit of being brought, in time t into 

 cultivated ground. Where the fur face- produce is naturally fmall, perhaps no 

 thing could be fo economical as, in the mean it- bile, to fill it with trees ; becaufe 

 thefe, if judicioufly chdfen, not only yield a greater profit than could be drawn 

 from any other kind of produce, and afford conveniences for houfes, and other ac 

 commodations for inhabitants and for manufactures,, but the ground itfelf, while 

 the trees continue to grow upon it, undergoes for the moft part a gradual amelio 

 ration, which it would not have done in its natural ftate, and admits of being more 

 cafily improved when ,the proprietor can find leifure to undertake it, than it 

 otherwife would have done.*&quot; Others recommend that every inch of fuch 

 barren wafte lands as are not capable of cultivation by the plough |, or of being 

 ufefully applied in the ftate of fward, mould be converted to the purpofe of 

 railing plantations, efpecially thofc bleak and expofed tracts on the fides of moun 

 tains, and on the banks of the fea. It is however the advice of an attentive obferver, 

 that large plantations, or coppices for profit, fhould not be made on good land, 

 always of much more value for corn or paflurage, but either on moift land of fmall 

 value, upon a clay or marl bottom,, where timber often grows well, or rather 

 where fuch land abounds, upon precipices, and fides of hills impracticable to 

 the plough ; and where it often happens the land unplanted is of little or no 

 valueJ-&quot; 



There are likewife fituations in the more warm and lefs expofed parts of almofl 

 every diftrict which are proper for admitting this fort of improvement, on account 

 of their incapability of being converted to other ufes ; fuch as the narrow corners 

 of fields in the ftate of tillage, and the hedge-rows of thofe in the condition of 

 grafs. 



In fhrt, there is fcarcely any portions of land fo poor, barren, rocky, or unpro 

 ductive, as not to admit of this fort of improvement, provided trees adapted to 

 the nature of their foils, and proper modes of planting bepractifed. 



The limits of a work of this nature are, however, too confined to admit of fully 

 examining and entering into the fubject, which would fill a volume. It is only a, 



* Anderfon s Effays, vol. IIL + Nicol s Pradical Planter. j Pit inStaflbrdtiiire Repert, 



