MR WITHERS. 



^15 



have less strain to endure Mr Withers's cor- 

 responding friends, especially those of his Majes- 

 ty's Dock-yards, with the good common sense of 

 practical men, are well acquainted with all this, al- 

 though they get a little out of element when they 

 meddle with nature or causes. Mr Withers is him- 

 self equally out of element when he expatiates on 

 the mighty advantage of trenching and manuring 

 at planting, and when he talks of our Scottish holes. 

 The Knight, too, is still more at fault in dreading 

 any great influence on the quickness of the growth 

 of trees from this gentleman's 7iew ifiventions, — and 

 doubly at fault, from conjecturing our navy would 

 suffer from being constructed of the fastest grown 

 British timber there is any chance of our shipwrights 

 obtaining. Since we were in our teens, we have al- 

 most every season trenched a portion of ground for 

 planting, and have manured highly at planting f , 



* We shall not here introduce the interminable discussion of 

 diy-rot, as it remains to be proved that moderately fast grown 

 young timber is at all more liable to dry-rot than small-growthed 

 old, provided the sap-wood be entirely removed. 



t In fairness, it may be proper to explain^ that the greater 

 part of the trees we have thus cultivated have been of P^rus, al- 

 though we commenced the practice with common forest trees — 

 yet the pear and apple vary nothing from the oak and ash in the 

 primary stage of life, in as far as respects the extension— we can 



