210 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



of the actual lucre of gain as the fatal vis inertice 

 that indolence which induces the lords of the soil to 

 be satisfied with what they can obtain from it by 

 immediate rent, rather than encounter the expense 

 and trouble of attempting the modes of amelioration 

 which require immediate expense and, what is, per- 

 haps, more grudged by the first-born of Egypt a 

 little future attention. To such we can only say that 

 improvement by plantation is at once the easiest, 

 the cheapest, and the least precarious mode of in- 

 creasing the immediate value, as well as the future 

 income, of their estates; and that therefore it is we 

 exhort them to take to heart the exhortation of the 

 dying Scotch laird to his son : ' Be aye sticking in 

 a tree, Jock it will be growing whilst you are 

 sleeping.' " 



