412 Growing Timber Trees with Farm Produce. 



satisfied with myself, my object now is to ascertain whether 

 this tree be worth cultivating on an extensive scale for the sake 

 of its timber; and if, amongst your numerous correspondents, 

 some one or more in the neighbourhood of Alnwick, of Man- 

 chester, or elsewhere, would, through the medium of your 

 most useful publication, give us the best information in their 

 power, it might be conferring a service on the public, but 

 would certainly oblige, ;; 



Sir, yours, truly, 

 Woodfield, Monmouthshire, John H. Moggridge. 



December 4. 1827. 



Art. VIII. An Attempt to show how Timber Trees may be 

 cultivated conjointly with Farm Produce. By W. M. of 

 Argyleshire. 



Sir, 

 I submit to your consideration a mode of increasing the 

 plantation of the more valuable sorts of timber in good soil, 

 and improving arable land, without very greatly interfering with 

 the average return of farm produce. From various and fre- 

 quently repeated experiments, on a small scale, I think it is 

 fully corroborated, that if our better quality of land were 

 planted with trees, it would return at some distant period, say 

 from sixty to eighty years, as great a profit as the same land 

 would do under a system of common farm management ; but 

 as these experiments have been on a small scale, such as or- 

 namental belts about the mansion-house, &c, they have gene- 

 rally been looked on with indifference by the more exten- 

 sive planter, and with the idea of the insuperable expense of 

 labour and manure. Mr. Withers has already published a 

 book (reviewed Gard. Mag., vol. ii. p. 75.), showing the great 

 advantage of treating trees as any other vegetables, with a 

 very small quantity of manure and hoe culture during the 

 early stages of growth. This forms the basis of the mode I 

 am to suggest, but would introduce the horse hoe and drill 

 crops, in order to remunerate the cultivator, by an annual re- 

 turn of agricultural produce. The more unwieldy apparatus 

 of the horse-hoe husbandry would require much greater dis- 

 tances than are at present, I think very uselessly and extrava- 

 gantly, adopted, for the double purpose of procuring shelter, 

 and increasing the number of chances of having trees. 



