PART VIII. PICTURESQUE PLANTING. 



451 



stances. But what is of great importance is, that it is often 

 most profitable in lands not adapted to the general purposes 

 of husbandry, such as dells, steep banks, rocky precipices*; 

 for deep rich soils, however favourable to other vegetables, are 

 not the best for producing timber; and it deserves to be re- 

 marked, that so long as ground of the former kind remains im- 

 planted, little or no rich arable land should be covered with 

 trees. But I wish it to be understood here, that such profits, 

 arising from plantations, as have been mentioned, only take 

 place when proper management is bestowed upon them. In 

 the instances authenticated by these authors, many of which 

 may still be seen in different parts of the country, the soil was 

 most commonly prepared, the plants always carefully inserted, 

 protected from cattle, cultivated, trained, and thinned; and 

 hence the result: — but this is by no means the case with the 

 plantations that are generally made; and, of course, they give 

 but a faint idea of the profits arising from planting. 



Upon the whole, noblemen and gentlemen are presented with 

 the most powerful motives, both of a public and private nature, 

 to induce them to plant. Trees are beautiful objects, the great- 



* At Dunkeld, Tay mouth, Blair in Athol, and many other places in the north of 

 Scotland, there are larches growing in such situations, from forty to fifty years old; 

 which, if cut down now, would pay at the rate qfSOl. or upwards each acre per an- 

 num since they were planted. See Planting and Rural Ornament, Vol. I. page 180, 

 3d edition. 



