ADVANTAGES OF PLANTING. 



7 



preparing the ground for cultivation. In the course 

 of forty or fifty years, therefore, it may be as un- 

 common to import wood from the British settle- 

 ments in North America, as at present it is to bring 

 the same commodity from the United States, 



It would appear, then, that the cultivation of 

 wood at home, and the planting of our lands not 

 appropriated to agriculture, are objects of no small 

 importance, considered in a national view. The 

 private advantages to be derived by the proprietors 

 of land, from a proper attention to the same depart- 

 ment of rural economy, may be rendered no less 

 conspicuous. 



of the north-west branch, partially on lire for some time, but 

 not to an alarming extent, until the 7th of October, when it 

 came on to blow furiously from the north-west, and the inhabi- 

 tants on the banks of the river were suddenly alarmed by a tre- 

 mendous roaring in the woods, resembling the incessant rolling 

 of thunder ; while, at the same time, the atmosphere became 

 thickly darkened with smoke. They had scarcely time to as- 

 certain the cause of this phenomenon, before all the surround- 

 ing woods appeared in one vast blaze, the flames ascending 

 more than a hundred feet above the tops of the loftiest trees, 

 and the fire, like a gulf in flames, rolling forward with incon- 

 ceivable celerity. In less than an hour Dougiastown and 

 Newcastle were enveloped in one vast blaze, and many of the 

 wretched inhabitants, unable to eycape, perished in the midst 

 i)f this terrible fire." 



