The Stojy of otir English Woodlands. 65 



be brought within the scope of their slender means. He 

 showed them how to collect their own seeds, and make their 

 own nurseries : he discouraged the transplantation of too 

 matured nurslings, thereby wresting enormous profits out of 

 the grasp of greedy dealers who had encouraged the practice; 

 and he classified in scientific order, though unfortunately he 

 could make very few additions to, the Sylva\s unarranged enu- 

 meration of the trees and shrubs which were indigenous to 

 this island in Evelyn's days. 



At the beginning of this century Loudon was the chief 

 arboriculturist, and in such high estimation was his great 

 work on trees that the coloured copies ^ of the second edition 

 were issued at £25 each. When thus under the influence of 

 more enlightened science, arboriculture once again came into 

 favour; the timber planted in the days of Hunter and Loudon 

 had at the date of its maturity to compete in the home market 

 with a formidable supply of excellent foreign materials, and 

 patriotic incentives had vanished with the war-frigate and 

 brig. Still, however, strong personal incentives have taken 

 the place of less selfish sentiments in influencing our lauded 

 proprietors to extend their area of woodland. Since the be- 

 ginning of the century there are, it is true, some 200,000 acres 

 less woodlands in Scotland, but there were in 1877 as much as 

 734,490 acres remaining. The great Scotch landed capitalists 

 must find it worth their while to plant and cultivate with 

 trees such huge areas of their estates, as, for example, the 

 Duke of Athole's 10,000 acres of larches at Dunkeld, and the 

 8,000 acres of firs and birch belonging to Lord Mansfield at 

 Scone.2 In England also many a tenant for life must be reap- 

 ing the fruits of a foresight which prompted his father to 

 furnish an inexhaustible supply of hurdles and fence-wood 

 for future generations ; and the wisdom which provided an 

 impervious shelter from the furious gusts which sweep over 

 the German Ocean must be keenly appreciated by such East 

 Anglian landlords as the Earl of Leicester and Sir Fowell 

 Buxton. 



* Loudon's Arhbretum et Frutecetiim Britannicuni, 2ud eel., 1835. 

 ^ EncycL Brit., sub voe. " Arboriculture." 

 II. F 



