T I M B E R P L A N T T N G. 6$ 



all forts of farm offices and cabbins might be built of it In feven 

 years from planting. Is it not inexcufable to complain of a 

 want of wood when it is to be had with fo much eafe ? Larch 

 and beech thrive wonderfully wherever I have feen them 

 planted ; and the Lombard/ poplar makes the fame luxuriant 

 frioots for which it is famous in England j and though a foft 

 wood yet it is applicable to fuch a multiplicity of purpofes, 

 and fo eafily propagated, that it deferves the greateft attention. 

 As to oak they are always planted in Ireland; from a nur- 

 fery I have feen very har.dfome trees as old as fifteen years, 

 fome perhaps older, but even at that age they run incompara- 

 bly more into head than plants in England which have never 

 been tranfplanted. It is a great misfortune that a century at 

 lead is neceffary to prove the mifchief of the practice : We 

 know by mod ample experience that the noble oaks in Eng- 

 land applicable to the ufe of the large fhips of war, were all 

 fonun where they remained. That tree pufhes its tap root fo 

 powerfully that I have the greateft reafon to believe the future 

 growth fuffers elTentially from its being injured, and I defy 

 the moft fkiiful nurferyman to take them up upon a large fcale 

 without breaking, if it is broke in the part where it is an almoft 

 imperceptible thread, it is juft the fame as cutting it off in a 

 larger part, the fteady perpendicular power is loft, and the 

 furface roots muft feed the plant, thefe may do for a certain 

 growth, and to a certain period, bur the tree will never be- 

 come the fovereign of the foreft, or the waves. I know feve- 

 ral plantations of fown oak in England from twelve to thirty, 

 and fome forty years growth, which are truly beautiful, and 

 infinitely beyond any thing I have feen in Ireland. 



The woods yet remaining in that kingdom are what in Eng- 

 land would be called copfes. They are cut down- at various 

 growths, fome being permitted to ftand forty years. Attentive 

 landlords fence when they cut to pveferve the future {hoots, 

 others do not. But this is by no means the fyftem with a view 

 to which I recommend planting, timber of any kind cut as fuch 

 will pay double and treble what the fhoots from any ftubs in 

 the world will do. They may come to a tolerable fize, and 

 yield a large value ; but the profit is not to be compared with. 

 To explain this, permit me one or two remarks. 



If willow, poplars, afh, &c. are planted for timber to be cut 

 at whatever age, ten, twenty or thirty years ; when cut the 

 ftools will throw out many fhoots, but let it not be imagined 

 that thefe flioots will ever again become timber ; they will 

 never be any thing but copfe wood, and attended in future 

 with no more than the copfe profu, which is not half that of 

 timber, in fuch a cafe the land fliould be new planted, and the 

 old ftools either grubbed up for fuel, or elfe the growth from 

 them cut very often for faggots till the new timber get? up 

 enough to drip on and deftroy it. The common practice in Ire- 

 land is cutting young trees down when they do not fhoot well, 

 this is convening timber to copfe wood ; attention to cutting 



VOL. II. E w>T 



