434 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



mountain or moor, take (says he) a few acres only of the best parts of 

 such districts : if you cultivate them highly, they will cost no more 

 expense than if you included the whole, and they will pay you sooner 

 for your labour: " profit, mid profit alone, ought to be the object of 

 the planter." (P. 74.) " Now, (saj^s Mr Loudon, one of the judicious 

 critics just now alluded to,) every planter of general experience will 

 differ on this point with Mr Withers. What we maintain is, that in 

 Scotland and Ireland, and in many parts of the north of England and 

 Wales, 1000 acres of wood of any sort confer moxQ value on an extensive 

 territorial surface, than the most thriving plantation of a few acres, 

 however profitable the latter might be wlien talen hy itself. In esti- 

 mating the value of IMr Withers' system, therefore, it is necessary to 

 take this view of the subject into consideration ; for a plantation may 

 yield no profit for many years, and yet add greatly to the value of an 

 estate, by its eff'ects in an ornamental point of view, by its shelter for 

 game, c, and its ultimately forming a nucleus for raising the more 

 valuable timber trees." In this sensible opinion I fully concur, after 

 many j-ears' experience : and I should certainly prefer, for most pur- 

 poses, to plant a thousand acres of a moor or a mountain, rather than a 

 few acres only of such a surface, if both could be executed at equal 

 cost. Still I own that I am extremely partial to the trenching and 

 manuring system under certain circumstances, (provided manure can 

 be found for a previous green-crop ;) and I trust that it will be brought 

 into much more extensive use than heretofore, where a speedy return of 

 crop and marketable timber, but nothing further, are expected. 



The most material question, however, between the advocates for the 

 trenching and the pitting systems, remains yet to be examined ; by 

 which it will appear, that profit is by no means the only rule by which 

 the merits of the former are to be tried. Mr Withers having performed 

 so many feats of prowess in this controversy — having beat down the 

 surveyor of eleven thousand acres of woodland, and contumeliously 

 trampled him under foot ; having had a tough encounter with one of 

 the most successful planters, and certainly the greatest writer of the 

 age, and in his own opinion discomfited Mm also — we cannot think it 

 wonderful that he should, after such a triumph, feel quite competent to 

 the task of raising (as he saj^s) a crop of oak, " to which we may look 

 forward with some confidence for future navies." (P. 29.) The judicious 

 phytologist, however, will pause ere he assign, even to such a champion, 

 his laurels, and anxiously inquire whether the promised timber will be 

 of the BEST QUALITY ; for " good marketable wood," which Mr 

 Withers clearly may raise, and raise speedily, would hardly satisfy his 

 Majesty's Commissioners of Woods and Forests for the important pur- 



