290 Retrospective Criticism. 



trying to destroy the white scale on my pine plants : if you think the result 

 worth having, I will communicate it at some future time. — J. B. W. [We 

 shall be most happy to receive it ; and we invite this correspondent, and 

 others, to supply us with information on all the subjects above referred to.] 



The Churchyard at Hedsor. — Your Magazine for December, 1833, was a 

 few days since put into my hand, and I immediately forwarded it to Lord 

 Boston, to give His Lordship an opportunity of reading your remarks on his 

 villa at Hedsor [IX. G46.]. His Lordship was more amused than annoyed by 

 the account you have given of his house and grounds ; but your observations 

 on the state of the churchyard appeared to him, as well as to myself, to 

 require some notice. You describe the mode of laying down the gravestones, 

 and the smooth and level appearance of the surface, as indicating " the exer- 

 cise of an undue influence over the poor." In reply to this, I beg to state 

 that the present mode of laying down the gravestones was adopted, with the 

 general consent of the parishioners, many years since, by the late Lord Boston ; 

 a nobleman whose extensive benevolence and kind attentions to the wants 

 and distresses of his poor neighbours exempt him, in the minds of all who 

 had the happiness of knowing him, from the slightest charge of exercising any 

 undue influence over them. Among the small population of the parish of 

 Hedsor, there are not more than three families who could afford the expense 

 of erecting any " frail memorial" over the graves of their deceased relatives ; 

 and, from the light nature of the soil of which the churchyard is composed, 

 all traces of a common grave would in a very short period moulder away : 

 whereas, under the system adopted by Lord Boston, every individual has a 

 flat stone placed over his grave with his initials engraved on it ; and a memo- 

 randum of the exact spot, with other particulars, is entered in a register kept 

 for the especial purpose; the whole expense falling on Lord Boston. The 

 neatness, and the absence of every thing unsightly in the appearance of the 

 churchyard, must, and does, gratify every one who sees it; and many of my 

 clerical friends who have visited Hedsor churchyard have expressed an earnest 

 wish that their own churchyards could be regulated in the same way. — 

 William M. Bradford. Rector of Hedsor, Beaconsfield, April 29. 1834. 



Larch Bark for Tanning. — Mr. Lawrence, among some very sensible re- 

 marks on the subject of planting (p. 29.), intimates that larch bark is of suffi- 

 cient value for the purpose of tanning, to " pay for stripping." Perhaps he 

 would have the goodness to state, through your Magazine, whether the tanners 

 in his neighbourhood are willing to purchase the bark of larch, and at what 

 price per ton ? A few years ago I had occasion to thin out some young 

 larches of about the thickness of a man's thigh; and having heard that the 

 bark of this tree was, for its tanning properties, perhaps next in value to that 

 of the oak, I was anxious, if possible, to introduce it to general use. With 

 this view, I applied to a tanner, with whom I had been in the regular habit of 

 dealing for a number of years ; but, bearing in mind the extreme reluctance 

 with which men adopt any new system out of the usual routine of their prac- 

 tice *, I proposed, for experiment's sake, that he should have the bark for 



* As an instance in point, I may mention, that, before the cultivation of 

 field turnips was general, at least in this part of the country, my grandfather 

 (as I have often heard) had no small difficulty in persuading a tenant to adopt 

 this kind of husbandry, and try the experiment. At length, however, he suc- 

 ceeded ; but only upon this condition : that, provided the farmer sowed his 

 field with turnips, he should pay no rent for the land that year, if the crop were 

 not found to answer. — W. T. B. 



" A little after the middle of the last century, the late Adam Kennedy, 

 Esq., of Romano, endeavoured to introduce potatoes and turnips into the 

 tenants' rotation of crops, by offering a deduction of 1/. per acre from the 

 rent for every acre under turnips and potatoes ; but a scheme thus proposed 

 by the landlord was suspected as tending to his own interest only, and the 

 effect of the premium was extremely limited. However, when Mr. M'Dougal, 



