vi 



INTRODUCTION. 



to produce disastrous consequences to the community 

 if no exertion be made to remedy the evil, I have 

 considered it an imperative duty to volunteer my 

 services. I am borne out in the opinion that some- 

 thing requires to be done, inasmuch as two societies 

 of noblemen and gentlemen have solicited information 

 on the subject; I therefore offer them and the public 

 the result of my observations. If my suggestions are 

 in accordance with the principles of nature, as I believe 

 them to be, the community at large may be materially 

 benefited by acting upon them. 



It is necessary there should be extensive national 

 plantations ; because private estates are liable to many 

 changes, both of owners and managers, whose various 

 wants and whims render the fate of the crop of timber 

 very precarious. 



It would be adding a golden page to the record of 

 the reign of our excellent Queen, if by Her Majesty's 

 command an extensive provision of British oak were 

 made for the future inhabitants of these islands. 



Numerous publications on the growth of timber 

 have issued from the press, but I have not yet found 

 one that treats, with sufficient attention, on the manner 

 in which trees grow spontaneously. Artificial systems 

 have been propounded, " line upon line," but all inves- 

 tigations as to quality of timber have been strangely 

 disregarded. Every part of the world has been 

 searched, "from Indus to the Pole," and its various 

 productions have been imported and cultivated, to rival 

 the offspring of our own soil, although acknowledged by 



