SECTION VI. 



439 



For these, and other reasons that could be given, if room permitted 

 here, I would humbly offer it as my opinion to His Majesty's Commis- 

 sioners of Woods and Forests, that the system of trenching and manu- 

 ring could not be introduced into the royal forests with safety to the 

 quality of British Oak, which it has been the pride of this country to 

 raise in such unrivalled perfection. I should therefore, with great 

 deference, recommend it to them to persevere in the same steady and 

 judicious course of management which they have been for some time 

 pursuing. In this view, I should wish to see them employ, for the ope- 

 rative part, none but the most experienced foresters that can be had, 

 whether in our own country or in Germany, where the management of 

 woods is better understood ; and to procure, if possible, for the superior 

 departments, superintendents who are not mere gardeners, like Mr 

 Billington and others, but who, to a thorough knowledge of planting, as 

 practised in the best districts, unite some pretensions to phytological 

 intelligence. Mr Withers has talked of a parliamentary inquiry, and 

 even expressed an anxious desire for it. Let himself or his friends come 

 forward with it when they please. The more that management like 

 the above is investigated, the more it will merit the thanks of the 

 country. 



In respect to Mr Withers' first pamphlet, I have already expressed 

 the opinion which I entertain of its merit. It is impossible for me not 

 to respect the ardent mind, and active industry, of a writer who is a 

 fellow-labourer with myself in the up-hill work of improving British 

 arboriculture. Although we differ on some points, yet I am certain 

 that he will now agree with me as to the low, or at least the unsettled 

 state of our knowledge in the art of planting on scientific principles ; 

 of which a better example cannot be given than that, in 1825, Mr 

 William Billington published an account of his own and Messrs 

 Driver's bungling operations in planting the forest of Dean ; and that 

 three years after — namely, in 1828 — as a remedy for those evils, and in 

 order to raise the most durable Oak for " future navies," Mr Withers 

 himself brought forth his recipe of high cultivation and manuring of 

 the soil. It is further worthy of remark, that in the numerous and ex- 

 cellent communications received by him (as appears by his book) on the 

 same subject, from planters certainly of judgment and experience, not 

 one of them, Mr Cuthbert Wm. Johnson excepted, appears to be a man 

 of science. Nevertheless, it would be unjust not to add that the reader 

 will find, in this second publication, some valuable remarks on " the 

 pruning and thinning of trees." Also, he will find in the more homely 

 and unpretending production of honest William Billington, probably 

 the hest instructions for conducting those important processes that exist 



