PLANTING ON POOE LANDS. 3o 



I am perfectly assured, that when a landlord is kind 

 and reasonable towards his tenants, he may have quite 

 enough game during the shooting season to afford good 

 sport to himself and his friends, and the less game he 

 sells to the poulterer the greater will be the satisfaction 

 of the tenants. 



Of all the pleasures derived from a rural life I know 

 of none more gratifying than that of making plantations 

 on your estate, more especially if you hapjjen to have 

 a quantity of land of so poor a quality as not to repay 

 you for its cultivation, but on which the larch firs 

 and some of the more hardy forest trees do well 

 and flourish. In performing this pleasing operation 

 several advantages are derived from it: most proba- 

 bly the features of the country are much improved as 

 the trees grow up. Your property is gradually benefited 

 by them, at first by thinning them with caution, and 

 after a certain number of years cutting some down as 

 timber, particularly the larch and firs, and some of the 

 softer kind of woods, and the plantations afford you 

 excellent covers for your game ; but you must take the 

 precaution to keep the hares and rabbits down whilst 

 the trees are young. If the ground is well prepared, 

 the holes for the trees being made two spits deep, every 

 year will give you additional pleasure when you look 

 at the flourishing state of these plantations ; you may in 

 some respect consider them as your children growing 

 ujD to maturity. Some persons who possess landed 

 property reason in this selfish way when planting is re- 

 commended to them : " Why should I do anything for 

 posterity ? for I am quite certain posterity will never do 

 anything for me." In this calculation they may be 

 egregiously mistaken, for the grandfather of the present 



