244 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF OAK. 



having on his estate a piece of ground entirely 

 overgrown with luxuriant furze, determined to plant 

 it with oaks. By way of preparing the ground for 

 the reception of the plants, he ordered the furze to 

 be rooted out and carried away. About five- sixths 

 of the land was thus actually cleared, but the re- 

 mainder was still in its original state, when the 

 planters overtook the labourers employed in remo- 

 ving the furze. The spring being far advanced, it 

 was judged inexpedient to stop the planting, till 

 the latter had completed their job, and the uncleared 

 part of the ground was accordingly planted like the 

 other. When I examined this plantation, I found 

 that many of the oaks had gone back throughout 

 the whole of it, but that more of them compara- 

 tively had done so where the whins had been al- 

 lowed to remain, than where they had been grubbed 

 up and carried away. This was, no doubt, caused 

 by the planters having found their work more diffi- 

 cult to execute in the thick cover, than on the open 

 ground, and therefore performing it in a less perfect 

 manner, in order to complete a stated quantity in a 

 given time. But however this may be, the surviving 

 plants among the whins, where they had been pro- 

 tected from the winds and frosts at the first outset, 

 were much farther advanced than those where the 



