73 



they have been enveloped for so long a time. The 

 wealthy proprietor, whose farms have just been men- 

 tioned, has an extent of land little short of forty 

 miles, from Eriden Lochavv to Castle Sween, and 

 were that gentleman to offer me a choice of the 

 woods on the wood-lands, or the rental of these farms 

 for seventy-two years, with liberty to take in the un- 

 enclosed stools of wood on these farms, I would take 

 the woods, and by this means I would insure to my pos- 

 terity, at the end of seventy-two years, a sum of at least 

 L.500,000 sterling, from timber trees on these lands ; 

 and have annually a good living from the three cop- 

 pice cuttings, nor would this take one acre of land 

 off these farms, nor one shilling of the present rental. 

 But this gentleman has already begun to appreciate 

 the value of improving his woods, by establishing 

 such a system, and putting the operative manage- 

 ment of that system into the hands of a forester, 

 whose skill, and indefatigable activity in plant- 

 ing and rearing woods and plantations, will, in 

 a very few years, be an immense revenue to his 

 posterity. Since the first edition of this Miscellany 

 was published, I have had occasion to be in the 

 shires of Dumfries, Roxburgh, Berwick, and Nor- 

 thumberland, and there is a very great many of such 

 stools, of various kinds of wood, which, if attended 

 to in the manner described, would be of immense 

 value, in a very few years, to the proprietors. 



No. XIII. 



The following from the pen of the late Lord Mea- 

 dowbank, in his interesting and judicious instruc- 

 tions to foresters, which coincides so much with what 



