II. 
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF BRITISH 
PLANTATIONS. 
In this country the name Plantation is chiefly applied to 
grounds planted with forest plants for the purpose of produc- 
ing useful timber ; and it also distinguishes artificial woods or 
forests from those that are of spontaneous growth. The uses 
of plantations are very various. Not only is timber abso- 
lutely necessary in every description of architecture and rural 
occupation, but trees in a living state improve the climate, in 
yielding shelter to lands exposed to rough winds, and shade 
to those under a burning sunshine. Of the native trees of 
Britain, there are only about twelve genera and thirty species 
which attain the size of timber trees, or trees of above thirty 
feet in height, and only three of these are evergreens— 
namely, the Scotch fir, the holly, and the yew, if we suppose 
the last to be a native. 
It was during the sixteenth century that plantations began 
to be extensively formed for timber and embellishment; but 
long before that period many of the timber trees had been 
introduced, and, in the absence of any distinct account, it is 
generally believed that they were brought to Britain by the 
Romans, or by the monks of the middle ages, with many of 
our cultivated fruits and vegetables. Of our earliest intro- 
duced trees we have the chestnut, the lime, the English elm, 
and the beech, with the apple, the pear, the peach, etc. In 
England previously to the reign of Henry vill., the timber 
required for the purposes of construction and fuel was sup- 
plied by the native forests of the kingdom. The first accounts 
