WOODS AND PLANTATIONS. 345 



substantial tenants at rents varying from 10s. to 25s. per acre. Besides 

 the increase in value of the agricultural lands, there is also a large 

 amount of valuable timber on them, which produces a handsome yearly 

 income from the thinnings taken from the plantations. With good 

 treatment, there is no reason why all high-lying exposed estates should 

 not be so improved. 



Where the proportion of wood on an estate is too large, it confines 

 the fields and prevents the crops from being ripened and dried in due 

 season. I am aware that many farmers object to plantations on their 

 farms, but this is not so much from any supposed injury done by the 

 plantations themselves, as it is from the amount of game which is usu- 

 ally reared in connection with them. The loss, in some seasons, of sheep, 

 and more especially lambs, in exposed districts of the country, is some- 

 times very great. It is well known that deaths of stock are much fewer 

 where the grazings are properly sheltered by plantations. Even cattle 

 in low-lying districts always take to the shelter of plantations in a 

 storm ; and cattle so situated improve much faster than where they are 

 exposed to the full force of the wind. It is also well known that cattle 

 require more food in a cold exposed situation than in a warm one. 

 Many intelligent farmers have remarked to me that shelter and warmth 

 were a good part of the feeding of their stock. 



Grasses grow much quicker and in greater abundance in sheltered 

 than in unsheltered situations. 



Bad soils are improved by planting trees on them, by the annual fall 

 of leaves, which decompose and form a rich soil. 



The value of landed estates is very much enhanced prospectively by 

 having an extent of well - arranged and healthy plantations. Such 

 estates, when brought into the market, bring an extra price, not only for 

 the saleable value of the timber at the- time, but also for what may 

 be expected from the timber when it has arrived at perfection. Pre- 

 suming the growing timber on an estate to be worth at the time 

 of the sale, say, 5000, I could state instances where 10,000 would 

 have been given for the same, taking its prospective value into ac- 

 count. The far-seeing purchaser of an estate can look forward to the 

 increase in value arising from the growth of trees until they come to 

 maturity. 



I scarcely know of any better way of laying out money to good interest 

 than by the formation of plantations on high-lying and exposed districts 

 of the country. It is capital laid out at compound interest, and on the 

 very best security. 



