446 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



fore, was to enclose with a strong ring-fence the whole estate, in which, 

 of course, he hadt he benefit of aid from his neighbours ; and having 

 previously drained such parts of it as were -swampy, he immediately 

 proceeded to plant the whole, excepting only an arable farm of a hun- 

 dred and forty acres. This took place about 1777. The soil was a 

 brown mould, the subsoil light and gravelly ; and although he covered 

 it with trees of every common species, yet he resolved that the Larch, 

 and the Scotch Fir, for which he had a peculiar predilection, should 

 form the staple of his ivoods. 



The singular spectacle of nearly an entire property dedicated to 

 trees, did not fail to attract the attention of his neighbours, who enter- 

 tained no belief of the extraordinary success of w^ood in these high 

 latitudes ; but the repeated premiums and medals conferred by the 

 Society of Arts soon attested the importance of his operations. After 

 the plantations had grown for five-and-twenty years, or more, Mr White 

 began to think of establishing his residence on the spot. For that pur- 

 pose he built a commodious house and offices ; he laid out an excellent 

 kitchen garden, and added shrubberies, a piece of water, and a handsome 

 little park, all cut out of this extensive woodland. Enclosures adapted 

 to tillage soon followed, which were added to the arable farm already 

 in his own occupation. 



But the wonderful part of the story still remains to be told. It is 

 well known to those who chance to have subjected to the plough old 

 woodland, how inconceivably even the poorest soils are meliorated by 

 the droppings of trees, and particularly of the Larch, for any consider- 

 able length of time, and the rich coat of vegetable mould which is 

 thereby accumulated on the original surface. The first years' crops of 

 corn were accordingly immense, and those that followed were such as 

 to give an extraordinary impulse to the good culture which gradually 

 took place. After the park was laid down, and the farm improved, the 

 land-rent, fairly estimating its value to a tenant, amounted to no less 

 than about £250 a-year. 



In respect to the plantations, after the first ten or twelve years 

 they began to pay admirably in pit-wood, hedge-stakes, and other 

 country uses ; and the Fir and Larch the best of all, from the tanning 

 principle so powerfully possessed by the latter over and above the 

 value of the wood. On inquiry, many years ago, I found that the 

 Larch-wood alone returned Mr White £650 a-year — a sum not greatly 

 less than the price he had paid for the entire estate ; and five or six 

 years since, it appeared that his son, the present Mr White, had often 

 drawn more than £400 a-year for his Larch-bark only, and i:iOOO 

 a-year as the entire revenue from his woods ! — This, it is to be observed, 



