PLANTING. 209 



tiniial care and labour for the preservation of the 

 whole reahn, amona: other privilecfes, this prerop^ative, 

 to have his places of recreation and pastime, where- 

 soever he will appoint. For as it is at the liberty 

 and pleasure of his grace to secure the wild beasts 

 and the g;ame to himself, for his only delig;ht and 

 pleasure, so he may also at his will and pleasure 

 make a forest for them to abide in." In this way 

 more than an eiii'hth of the whole kingdom was made 

 forest for the king's pastime ; and the most vexatious 

 and arbitrary regulations were enforced for the purpose 

 of preserving the game. The grievance at length 

 was put down by the spirit of the people. 



The publication of his Sylva, by Evelyn, gave a 

 considerable impulse to planting in the time of 

 Charles II.; but in the next century that duty was 

 nuich neglected by the landed proprietors of this 

 country. There is a selfish feeling, that the planter 

 of an elm or an oak does not reap such an immediate 

 profit from it himself, as will compensate for the 

 expense and trouble of raising it. This is an ex- 

 tremely narrow principle, which, fortunately, the 

 rich are beginning to be ashamed of It is a po- 

 sitive duty of a landed proprietor who cuts down 

 the tree which his grandfather planted, to put a 

 young one into the ground, as a legacy to his own 

 grand-children : he will otherwise leave the world 

 worse than he found it. Sir Walter Scott, who is 

 himself a considerable planter, has eloquently de- 

 noiniced that contracted feeling which prevents pro- 

 prietors thus improving their estat«^s, because the 

 profits of plantations make a tardy and distant return; 

 and we cannot better conclude than with a short 

 passage from the essay in which he enforces the 

 duty of planting waste lands : — 



" The indifference to this great rural improvement 

 arises, we have reason to believe, not so much out 



