WOODS AND COPSES. 43 



SECTION III. 

 ON SITUATIONS FOR WOODS AND COPPICES, 



I. Of Woods. 



IT may be proper here to remind the reader of 

 the difference bet\veen a wood and a plantation. 

 A wood, then, is always underftood to be either 

 entirely a natural produ&ion ; or to be fown, not 

 planted, by man ; and to confift of a mixture of 

 timber trees, chiefly of oak and afh, with un- 

 derwood or mrubs, as willow, hazel, holly, birch, 

 or thorn. Some natural woods, however, parti- 

 cularly in Scotland, confift almoft entirely of fir- 

 trees, with, fometirnes, a mixture of birch, moun- 

 tain-afl^ and feveral kinds of fhrubs. The ex- 

 tent of a wood may be any thing, from an acre, 

 or half an acre, to many fquare miles : when of 

 this laft fize, it afTumes the appearance of a fcreft, 

 and generally receives that denomination. 



Nature, in eftablifhing moft of her woods, 

 feems to have chofen to begin in fheltered fitua- 



tions, 



