SECTION VII. 



Note I. Page 167. 



I FEEL particular satisfaction in paying this just tribute to tlie memorj^ 

 of a superior and ingenious artist. His professional character has been 

 slightly, but justly sketched, in the passage to which this Note refers ; 

 and all who remember him will unite with me in doing justice to his 

 private worth, his pleasing manners, and his extensive information on all 

 subjects connected with rural affairs. Mr White was an excellent agri- 

 culturist, an ingenious mechanic, and a planter of great skill. Like his 

 master. Brown, he was in the habit of undertaking the execution of his 

 own designs, and also of plantations of considerable extent, in both 

 England and Scotland, until his business as a landscape-gardener, in the 

 latter country, became too extensive to admit of such undertakings. In 

 this way he had planted, before the year 1780, for Lord Douglas, at 

 Douglas Castle, about fifteen hundred acres of ground, which are now 

 covered with fine wood, and of which the thinnings have long been a 

 source of considerable revenue to the noble owner. 



About the year 1770, Mr White made the purchase of an estate in 

 the higher parts of the county of Durham, on which he planted so 

 extensively and successfully, that it may be worth while, for the 

 encouragement of the young planter, to give some idea of the returns 

 which it made to him. But these are so wonderful and portentous, 

 that, to the ordinary reader, they may rather seem referable to the feats 

 of some arboricultural Miinchausen than to the sober results of judg- 

 ment and industry. 



The territory of Woodlands (for so it was named by the new owner) 

 extended to between seven and eight hundred acres, and cost Mr White 

 about =£750. It was situated in a high, and at that time a barren tract 

 of country, about eighteen miles from the city of Durham, and wholly 

 destitute of wood. But as it was surrounded with coal mines, he had 

 the sagacity to foresee that there was scarcely any return that might 

 not be expected from Fir and Larch, and other quick growers, judi- 

 ciously planted, and on a suitable soil. The first thing he did, there- 



