NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



SECTION I. 



Note I, Page 4. 



Whoever is acquainted with the pursuits and information of the 

 generality of landowners and country gentlemen, will be disposed to 

 give full credit to the assertion here made in the text, and also to the 

 following anecdote, which I shall mention for the amusement of the 

 reader. 



In the county of ^, in which as large sums have been laid out in 



planting as in most others within the last half century, a gentleman, 

 who is curious and intelligent about woods, and entertains the same 

 opinion of the generality of our planters as I do, was, some few years 

 since, remarking in a public company the almost universal want of 

 science, or even of ordinary knowledge, that prevails on a topic so 

 generally interesting. Not finding many persons agree with him in this 

 sentiment, he offered a bet of five to one, that no gentleman present 

 should, within three months, name three persons, landholders in the 

 county, who had executed large plantations, and were possessed of from 

 ^500 to £5000 a-year and upwards, that were able " to state with 

 precision the different sorts of soils to which twelve of the principal 

 forest trees planted in Britain were best adapted." 



The bet was on all hands allowed to be a very " sporting" one, and 

 was immediately taken up. The taker of it next day set to work with 

 his search. Being no planter himself, though a good agriculturist, he 

 had no acquaintance with the subject in question : but he naturally 

 enough imagined, that the species of knowledge, which was useless to 

 him, must yet be valuable to others ; and that therefore a planter could 



