CHAPTER VI. 



WOODS AND PLANTATIONS. 



The encouragement given by the Society to the extension 

 of planting has been of a kind that warrants its being dealt 

 with in a separate chapter. 



From the year 1805 to i8ii inclusive, premiums were 

 offered to the person in Scotland who should raise the 

 greatest quantity of osiers and willows. No competition 

 took place till 18 10, when a piece of plate of twelve guineas' 

 value was awarded to William Attwell, basket manufac- 

 turer, Gla.sgow, who was certified to have planted above 

 nine acres of ground on the banks of the Kelvin, near 

 Glasgow, with various kinds of osiers and willows, with 

 above 50,000 plants per acre. In the following year, a 

 piece of plate of the same value was voted to John 

 Crouch, basket maker, Edinburgh, for his plantation of 

 willows near Edinburgh. From this period the premiums 

 were discontinued. Prize reports on the cultivation of 

 willows were published in the tenth volume of the third 

 series of the Transactions. 



In 1809, the Society, being of opinion that there was a 

 great deal of ground on the north-west coast of Scotland 

 which it would be advantageous for the proprietors them- 

 selves, and to the country, to have planted, and properly 

 inclosed, conceived that it would be useful to call the 

 attention of proprietors to the object, and, with this view, 

 introduced into the advertisement for January 18 10 honor- 

 ary premiums to proprietors of estates on the north-west 

 coast of Scotland who should, betwixt February 18 10 and 

 lOth April 1812, plant the greatest extent of ground, after 

 being properly enclosed ; one-half of the plants to be larch 

 or hardwood. The premiums excited the attention which 

 the Society hoped ; and a gold medal, with a suitable in- 



