379 



a moderate expense, and by the pitting method, be made eminently pro- 

 ductive in Wood. 



But Mr. Withers has a ready answer to this. Instead of an entire 

 mountain or moor, take (says he), a few acres only of the best parts of 

 such districts : if you cultivate them higlily, they will cost no more ex- 

 pense, than if you included the whole, and they will pay you sooner for 

 your labour : " Profit, and profit alone, ought to be the object of the 

 planter." p. 74. "Now (says Mr. Loudon, one of the judicious critics 

 just now alluded to), every planter of general experience will differ on 

 this point with Mr. Withers. What we maintain is, that in Scotland 

 and Ireland, and in many parts of the North of England and Wales, 

 1000 acres of wood of any sort confer more value on an extensive 

 territorial surface, than the most thriving plantation of a few acres, 

 however profitable the latter might be, when taken by itself. In esti- 

 mating the value of Mr. Withers's system, therefore, it is necessary to 

 take this view of the subject into consideration; for a plantation may 

 yield no profit for many years, and yet add greatly to the value of an 

 estate, by its effects in an ornamental point of view, by its shelter for 

 game, &c. and its ultimately forming a nucleus for raising the more 

 valuable timber-trees." In this sensible opinion I fully concur, after 

 many years experience ; and I should certainly prefer, for most purpo- 

 ses, to plant a thousand acres of a moor or a mountain, rather than a 

 few acres only of such a surface, if both could be executed at equal 

 cost. Still I own, that I am extremely partial to the Trenching and 

 Manuring system, (under certain circumstances, provided manure can be 

 found for a previous green-crop,) and I trust, that it will be brought into 

 much more extensive use than heretofore, where a speedy return of 

 crop, and marketable timber, but nothing further, are expected. 



The most material question, however, between the advocates for the 

 Trenching asd the Pitting systems, remains yet to be examined ; by 

 which it will appear, that profit is by no means the only rule by which 

 the merits of the former are to be tried. Mr. Withers, having per- 

 formed so many feats of prowess in this controversy ; having beat down 

 the surveyor of eleven thousand acres of woodland, and contumeliously 

 trampled him under foot ; having had a tough encounter with one of the 

 most successful planters, and certainly the greatest writer of the age, 

 and, in his own opinion, discomiited him also, we cannot think it wonder- 

 ful, that he should, after such a triumph, feel quite competent to the task 

 of raising (as he says) a crop of oak, " to which we may look forward 

 with some confidence, for future navies." — p. 29. The judicious phy- 

 tologist, however, will pause, ere he assign, even to such a champion. 



