SECTION VI. 



431 



this conviction, Mr Withers undertook to draw up a second pamphlet, 

 more extensive than the first, chiefly, as it appears, with the view of 



ImPROITLNG the MANAGEMEiNT OF THE ROYAL FoRESTS, AND RAISING SUPE- 

 RIOR Timber for the Navy. 



The object, it will on all hands be admitted, was highly laudable, 

 and, could Mr Withers have accomplished it, was sufiicient to have 

 placed him at the head of the arboriculturists of the present day. Of 

 the method in which he has attempted this, (with the best intentions, as 

 I truly believe,) there is room only for a very rapid and cursory exami- 

 nation in this place ; and as I have been indirectly called upon for an 

 opinion upon his method by his majesty's government, I shall give it 

 candidly, and in the most concise manner I am able. 



It is well known to those who possess the best judgment, and the 

 best opportunities of judging, that there are few departments under 

 government which are managed with more diligence and ability than 

 that of the " woods and forests." The noble lord, and the first commis- 

 sioner, now at the head of that department, are both unremitting in 

 their endeavours to put the affairs of the royal forests on the best foot- 

 ing, and under the superintendence of men of the greatest skill and 

 experience ; and the late improvements made, as I understand, are such 

 as entitle them to the highest praise. On comparing these forests with 

 the best-managed woods and plantations belonging to private indivi- 

 duals, it will be found that the defects in either are far more to be 

 attributed to the general neglect of the art of planting in Britain, and 

 to the want of that useful assistance which might be afforded to it (as 

 T have already observed) by agricultural chemistry, as well as phyto- 

 logical science, than to any other cause. Whether Mr Withers' 

 pathetic lamentations of the defective management of the royal forests, 

 and " the shame and indignation" which he virtuously feels on that 

 account, (p. 27,) proceed from an ignorance of these well-known facts, 

 and an unacquaintance with the manner in which those forests ought to 

 be managed ; or whether they are put forth ad captandmriy and for the 

 purpose of catching that " gale of popularity," which every one in a 

 free country is sure to obtain who makes an attack upon the govern- 

 ment, I shall not take it upon me to determine ; but from the apparent 

 sincerity and frankness of his whole manner and character, I should far 

 rather attribute them to the former motives. 



Not long before the appearance of his second pamphlet — that is, in the 

 end of last year — it so happened that the greatest writer of the age. Sir 

 Walter Scott, (who to his other multifarious accomplishments adds con- 

 siderable experience in the management of woods,) drew up an " Essay 

 on the Planting of Waste Lands." It appeared in the seventy-second 



