530 ON USEFUL AND BOOK I. 



finally to remain. Now, two or three bushels are fully suf- 

 ficient for an acre, which, at 8s. or 9s. a bushel, is much below 

 the price of only one thousand transplanted trees of the 

 cheapest sort, and which would not plant above a quarter of an 

 acre, Transplanted oaks, which would cost nearly double the 

 price of the acorns, would, in the space of four years, be at least 

 the growth of three seasons behind them in point of size, both 

 being put in the ground at the same time. Supposing the 

 ground, then, on which an oak wood was to be raised, sum- 

 mer-fallowed and trench-ploughed at each acre, and sown 

 broad-cast before the last ploughing with acorns ; the total ex- 

 pense (making an ordinary allowance for the proportion of 

 the expense of enclosing) would be only JS5. 5s. or £3. 10s. 

 each acre. Or, if it were desirable to have the undergrowth of 

 oak only, and the timber-trees of some other kinds, then 250 

 ash, beech, or elm, on each acre, (which would afford a distance 

 of more than twenty feet between each tree) could be planted 

 immediately after the acorns were ploughed in, at an expense 

 not exceeding 105. each acre more, or £3. 15s. or £4*. each acre 

 in the whole. I appeal to every one, whether plantations, with 

 the soil thus prepared and planted, for £4>. 10s., would not far 

 exceed in growth those where the soil is uncultivated, but 

 where the ground is pitted and planted with transplanted oaks, 

 at the rate of <£8. or o£l0. each acre. 



Indeed, where extensive plantations of deciduous trees are 



