C 214 ) 



To the Lords Commissimers of his Majesty^ s Treasury. 



MY LORDSj 



Having met on Saturday, at Kensington, incompliance 

 with the desires of your Lordships, communicated to us by 

 the Commissioners of the Land Revenue, we endeavoured to 

 take every measure for the investigation requested of us that 

 the time and circumstances permitted ; and we conceive that 

 the best and most satisfactory mode of reporting to your lord- 

 ships the result of that investigation will be, to specify, as shortly 

 as may be, the steps we took ; the observations we made ; and 

 our opinions, founded both upon what we ourselves saw, and 

 upon such documents as appeared to us authentic and convinc« 

 ing. 



After referring to the last letter addressed to us by the 

 Commissioners, in order that we might keep in view, as much 

 as possible, the objects more particularly recommended to our 

 attention, we proceeded first to read a statement by Mr, For- 

 syth of the properties of his composition, and then to inspect 

 and examine the various specimens and documents laid before 

 us by him, tending to prove and illustrate those properties. 



Our investigation, thus far, having proved as satisfactory 

 as the nature of it admitted, we thought it right to require Mr. 

 Forsyth to shew us such trees in Kensington Gardens as (hav- 

 ing brien injured or decayed bv whatever cause) had been bene- 

 fited by the application of this composition ; and we desired 

 him to shew us what specimens he could of such trees in all the 

 stages of their amendment and recovery. In consequence of 

 this requisition, we were conducted to many forest-trees of 

 different kinds, viz. elms, limes, and horse-chesnuts in which 

 holes a,nd wounds, in some instances several feet in length, and 

 of a considerable width and depth, had been completely filled 

 up with sound wood, so as the outline of the wound remained 

 barely discernible in the bark. We examined many others in 

 an evident state of progress towards a similar cure, and we 

 could not discover any one of the experiments that fell under 

 our observation, of which we had the least reason to doubt the 

 success. We examined also several experiments upon trees 

 which standing near each other, had been cut down, and to the 

 ptems of which the compositioii had been applied, while the 



