6 



GROWING GOLD. 



management of large woods and plantations, 

 have never seen one. This, although an ex- 

 traordinary assertion, is, nevertheless, but too 

 correct. When owners of this kind of pro- 

 perty investigate the point, they will be ready 

 to admit the truth of the statement. From the 

 present condition of trees in general, no other 

 inference can be drawn. I can confidently 

 affirm that many large estates have been 

 looked over two or three times each, and there 

 has not been found a single healthy looking 

 oak tree of any age growing at its full natural 

 rate : if wood agents of such estates had seen 

 some fullgrown specimen, it is but just to 

 presume they would have copied the means 

 by which it had been reared . The least stunted 

 young oak trees that have been discovered, 

 whose ages are correctly known, are under 

 the care of a person who has also the manage- 

 ment of some hundreds of acres of woods and 

 plantations, in which none but stunted, muti- 

 lated, wind driven, dead topped, moss grown, 

 diminutive trees are to be found. The blind- 

 ness of this man is inexcuseable, because he 



