194 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



each ; consequently their value at the present time would have 

 been at least £1,500,000. : this is exclusive of immense quantities 

 of fuel that would also have been furnished by thinning the plan- 

 tations during that period. 



How much then have the present generation cause to lament 

 the negligence and inattention of their fathers ! If those planta- 

 tions had been established, fuel would have been, during the last 

 twenty years, in abundance ; and there would have been enough 

 to supply the numerous ships that annually touch here ; whilst 

 the aspect of the island would have been beautified : and in all 

 probability an improvement in the climate effected, by the attraction 

 of a greater degree of moisture from such extensive plantations. 



Surely these reflections are enough to rouse the attention of the 

 present landholders ; and as every facility will, in future, be 

 given to forward so laudable an object, by establishing proper 

 nurseries in the Company's gardens at Plantation-house, from 

 which all the fittest sort of trees for this climate will be supplied, 

 at moderate rates, I therefore entertain a sanguine hope that the 

 present beginnings will be pursued with ardour. 



If, after what has been said, and I hope clearly demonstrated, 

 there should be any occupier of land, who is not impressed with 

 a conviction of the infinite importance of plantations of pineaster 

 and other useful trees, and who does not exert himself in rearing 

 them, I should consider such a man as totally blind to his own 

 interests ; regardless of himself and family ; and of little or no 

 use to the community of which he is a member. 



I cannot quit this subject without again adverting to what has 

 been stated in my letter to Dr. Berry, in pages 15 and 16 of the 

 last month's Register.* Experience, during five years past, has 

 clearly shewn that the pineaster, stone,pine, cypress, Botany Bay 



* Section XXVII. 



