161 



trees in the niidUiud and southern counties, owing probably 

 to the superior soil, which exists in the latter districts. Of 

 these, the Swilcar, Shelton, Chandos, and Fredville oaks, the 

 Tortworth, Burleigh, and Cobham chestnuts, the Chipstead 

 and Tutbury elms, the Woburn ash, the Knowle beech, and 

 the Cobham lime and sycamore are eminent examples, as 

 may be seen in Mr. Sturt's late elegant delineations.* A 

 more powerful delineator than Sturt says, of the King's Oak 

 at Blenheim, that "although scathed and gnarled in its 

 branches, the immense trunk still showed, to what gigantic 

 size the monarch of the forest can attain in the groves of 

 merry England."t As it appears plain, from these and other 

 instances, both in the north and south, that the size of wood 

 will be mainly in proportion to the depth of the soil on which 

 it grows, it should be the chief study of the planter, to pro- 

 mote that capital object. It is a sound maxim, as old as 

 Theophrastus, and repeated by Columella and Pliny, as 

 familiar to the Roman husbandman, to transfer no tree to a 

 worse soil than that in which it had previously stood :t and 

 whatever in this respect holds true of young plants, must, a 

 fortiori, hold more decidedly true of large subjects, such as 

 are intended for removal. If in transplanting we must 

 often increase the cold, and other circumstances adverse to 

 trees, it becomes us the more diligently to study, that the soil 

 be rendered as rich and deep as possible, in order in some 

 sort to counterbalance those disadvantages. 



There are few persons so happily situated, as to be able to 

 command much animal or vegetable manure, for the use of 

 trees. Such artificial modes of enrichment or improvement 

 must therefore be resorted to, as science or experience has 



* See Sturt's elegant Portraits of British Forest Trees, with respect- 

 able letterpress description. Lend. 1826. 



t Sir Walter Scott, Woodstock, Vol. I. p. 68. 

 t Note II. 



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