94 



ON QUALITY OF SOIL. 



fir, almost beyond comparison^ the more eligible 

 crop. Land which is proper for Scots fir, is very 

 improper for spruce ; and, though the selling price 

 of both is nearly on a par, a proprietor will lose at 

 least a hundred per cent, by planting either in land 

 which is naturally adapted for the other. In order, 

 therefore, to secure the greatest possible return of 

 profit from a plantation, it is necessary that we 

 should form it of such kind of trees, and of such on- 

 ly, as agree with the nature of the soil. This is a 

 rule, which, either through ignorance or negligence, 

 is often grossly violated. Some planters, in the dis- 

 tribution of their trees, seem to have been guided 

 solely by chance. We often find the fir tribes en- 

 cumbering ground, which might have been much 

 more profitably filled by the elm, the beech, or the 

 oak, and either or all of the last mentioned species 

 languishing, and of scarce any value, where the for- 

 mer would have been a lucrative crop. The effects 

 of this error, attributed to a wrong cause, have, in 

 some instances, given rise to a prejudice, that whole 

 estates, and large tracts of country, are utterly in- 

 capable of producing any kind of wood. Frequent 

 failures, for example, in attempting to rear the 

 Scots fir, in a soil and climate both eminently unfa- 

 vourable to it, but well calculated for the growth of 



