ADVANTAGES OF PLANTING. 



21 



'vantage. But as other writers have nearly ex- 

 hausted this topic, it is unnecessary for me to en- 

 large upon it, especially as this article has already 

 swelled out far heyond the limits I at first intended 

 it to occupy. 



After all that has been said on the advantages of 

 planting, there is one objection occasionally made 

 against it, which some will think, or affect to think, 

 still unanswered, namely, that it is a species of im- 

 provement from which its author can derive no be- 

 nefit, as trees require longer to come to maturity 

 than the brief space usually allotted to human life. 

 Many, however, have lived till the trees which they 

 have themselves planted, were fit for most of the 

 purposes to which timber is applicable ; and every 

 one who plants before he is fifty years old, may rea- 

 sonably hope to see his plantations in a state of such 

 advancement, as to be not only in the highest de- 

 gree ornamental to his estate, but as likewise to pro- 

 mise that his immediate successor may derive from 

 them no small accession to his income. Planting 

 may, in fact, be considered as one of the surest me- 

 thods by which a proprietor of land can enrich his 

 descendants, and increase the opulence of his family 

 in future years. To those, indeed, who are so con- 

 centrated in self as to be wholly indiflferent abou 



