202 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



p. 17;* let him compare the facts on which those deductions are 

 founded — let him look at those trees, the growth of which has 

 been recorded — and he will, I trust, find the reasoning incontro- 

 vertible : besides, in regard to the trees that have been noticed, 

 of twenty-six years growth, it is proper here to observe, that there 

 is not one that has been treated as it ought to have been : they 

 have all been placed too much asunder, and thereby deprived of 

 the advantage of sheltering each other, and of being drawn up 

 into straight timber. Their stems have been denuded of their 

 branches to the height of 18 or 20 feet ; the soil in which they 

 grow has been thereby too much exposed to the sun's rays, and 

 from these causes there cannot be a doubt they have received a 

 considerable check. Had they been planted and treated accord- 

 ing to Mr. Miller, there is good reason to believe they would 

 succeed better : but taking them as they are, they are now valuable, 

 both for timber and fuel. 



Mr. Curwen estimates his trees at sixty years growth, and 

 their value at three hundred pounds per acre. The estimate I 

 have taken is at twenty years only ; and the value (at this island 

 price of timber and fuel) exceeds ten times that sum. What a 

 vast encouragement is this to a speculation which is generally 

 admitted in England to be one of the most profitable, in which a 

 landholder can engage ! 



When it is considered also that a single individual (Mr. Johnes 

 of Havod) has formed the resolution of planting one million of 

 trees annually, ought not this to stimulate the united efforts of 

 the seventy landholders of St. Helena ? who might assuredly, with 

 ease accomplish one tenth of this number every year. If such a 

 resolution were adopted by them, it would, in the course of a few 

 years render St. Helena abundant in fuel ; and in twenty years, 



* Section XXVIII. 



