Withers' 's Letter to Sir H. Steuart. 97 



serve in limiting the employment of the labouring poor ; our sincerest plea- 

 sure has, for these thirty } r ears past, proceeded from planning and directing 

 such employment • but an indiscriminate trenching of ground for planting 

 would, in many instances, we fear, be attended with less advantageous con- 

 sequences than Mr. Withers will be willing to admit. 



" Where the surplus soil consists of a few inches of peat, or moor earth, 

 incumbent on open gravelly ferrugineous subsoil, which, undisturbed, would 

 carry larch and Scotch fir, trenching, we know, from a little dear-bought 

 experience, would be highly injurious, and a great breadth of moorish waste 

 lands is of this description • nor have we ever seen trenching be of any bene- 

 fit to planting on soft soils where broom predominates. There are nume- 

 rous tracts of calcareous sandy subsoils, sufficiently porous for admitting 

 the roots of trees, where trenching would render the trees liable to wind- 

 waving, and could otherwise be of no benefit. There are also many swamps 

 on our waste lands, for which effectual draining, paring, burning, and pitting, 

 would be sufficient preparation, equal, if not superior to trenching. Such 

 soils, when properly drained, become sufficiently open, and the spreading 

 roots of trees would soon increase the pulverisation. A melon thrives best 

 when the soil in which it grows is not too much broke, and every farmer 

 prefers land which carries a clod. 



" We now come to the ' sole object ' of the second pamphlet, which * was 

 to expose the fundamental errors of Sir Walter Scott' in his essay on planting. 

 ' The heresy there broached, that the preparation of land for planting would 

 cease to have any effect after a few years, excited rather strong feelings in the 

 mind' of Mr. Withers (p. 20.); but what is still more afflicting, his friend, 'John 

 Kershaw, Esq.,' who, by the by, seems to speak from experience, and whom 

 he produces as exculpatory evidence, seems a little tinctured with the same 

 heresy. ' With respect to manure on poor land,' says Mr. Kershaw, ' it 

 can be of no consequence, in my opinion, to timber, particularly to oak, as 

 that wholly depends on the subsoil for its growth to perfection.' (p. 85.) 

 ' But all the manure and care possible will not produce good oak timber, if 

 the subsoil is not congenial to its nature, although strong plants may be 

 raised atjirst.' (p. 86.) We confess, too, that we have long been infected 

 with the heresies of Sir Walter and Mi*. Kershaw, and our heretical opi- 

 nions are supported by the following facts : — In field culture, even where 

 additional vegetable matter is afforded by the ploughing in of three * white 

 stubbles ' in the course of a six years' rotation, the dung laid on at the be- 

 ginning of the course is found to be exhausted by the sixth year on soils 

 naturally the richest ; and in poor lands it is found necessary to dung 

 twice in the course of a six or seven years' rotation ! It will not be pre- 

 tended that forest trees are less greedy feeders than wheat, clover, oats, 

 peas, and barley ; every cottager in the kingdom, who has the misfortune to 

 have a forest tree in his garden, and we are sorry to say there are many 

 such, and every farmer who has hedge-row timber on his farm, will bear us 

 out in saying, that the roots of such trees exhaust manure in less than half 

 the time in which it is exhausted by ordinary crops. We do not mean to 

 advocate the cause of Sir Walter Scott. His character as a writer places 

 him above our censure or praise ; with men of experience the attack by 

 Mr. Withers on his essay is a sufficient advocation. Here lies the secret : 

 Sir Walter is a Scotchman, Sir Henry is a Scotchman, and we see what a 

 horrible thing it is in the eyes of Mr. Withers for Scotchmen to write 

 common sense, or to give their opinion on any subject, if it should not 

 exactly correspond with his. We quote the following specimen of his 

 urbanity : — ' These three gentlemen were all Scotchmen, men of rank, and 

 great landed proprietors, and it is natural that Lord Glenbervie, a Scotch- 

 man also, should be influenced by their opinions. The Scotch generally prac- 

 tise the pitting method,' (what an indelible reproach ! !) ' and we see that 

 in the case of Dean Forest, it is more than probable that the opinion of 



Vol. VI. — No. 24-. h 



