8 PLANTING. 



profitableness, as well as pleasure, of planting. His 

 love of " the good green wood " was found not only in 

 the delight it communicated to his poetic eye, but on 

 his faith in its power to put money into the landed 

 proprietor's purse, and to provide useful employment 

 for the population of rural districts. 



He regarded as " indispensable requisites for success- 

 ful planting : a steady and experienced forester, with 

 the means of procuring at a moment's notice a suffi- 

 cient number of active and intelligent assistants. En- 

 closing, planting, pruning, thinning, and felling, are," 

 he said, " going on successfully in different parts of the 

 estate in one and the same year ; and these are opera- 

 tions in all of which a good workman ought to be so 

 expert as to be capable of working at them by turns." 



The author of ' Waverley ' also found time to discuss, 

 describe, and explain the nature, operations, and bene- 

 fits of transplantation, giving peculiar prominence to 

 the system of Sir Henry Steuart, of Allanton, Lanark- 

 shire ; and speaking generally of the transference of 

 trees, he gave it as his opinion that " earlier or later 

 this beautiful and rational system will be brought into 

 general action, when it will do more to advance the 

 picturesque beauty of the country in five years than 

 the slow methods hitherto adopted can attain in fifty." 



