514 



APPENDIX. 



ing, cutting, and disposing of wood of almost every species known in 

 this island, I must declare, that for purposes of utility, and to make a 

 return in any degree proportioned to the money laid out, there are no 

 trees so proper as the Oah and the Asli. It is a great, although not an 

 uncommon error, to imagine that the Oak will not grow except on land 

 of a superior quality ; whereas the fact is, that it will grow to tolerable 

 copsewood on very exposed situations and in almost any soil, light and 

 thin sand excepted. The bark of the Oak (even when nothing higher 

 than copsewood can be raised) is found to be more valuable than both 

 the wood and the bark of any other tree ; and to all general purposes 

 there is no tree so universally applicable as the Ash, — even more so than 

 the Oak itself. 



It is therefore probable that the only trees worth planting with the 

 view of profit to an estate, are the Oak and the Ash. In regard to beauty 

 and ornament, no precise rule can be laid down. I have mentioned 

 above the different kinds which, if planted on soils congenial to them, 

 will have the best effects in a gentleman's park, and about his place. 



In the foregoing hints, the Fir tribe has been considered merely as 

 nurses to more valuable, or at least more permanent, plantations. But 

 from the many successful experiments which have lately been made on 

 the utility of the Larch, both on account of its wood and its harhy it may 

 be doubted whether, on poor and exposed land, any return equally 

 great will ever be made, as by planting it with Larch and Scotch Fir 

 only, (three fourths of the former and one fourth of the latter) — cutting 

 them down completely at the end of fifty or sixty years, and then plant- 

 ing the ground anew. On the other hand, however, it may be said of 

 permanent woods, or woods consisting wholly of deciduous trees, that 

 the oftener they are cut over, the more they will increase, both in value 

 and vigour ; whereas, a wood of the Fir species only, being of a tempo- 

 rary nature, as soon as it is cut down, it is at an end ; and it seems 

 rather uncertain whether, in the exhausted state of the ground after 

 the first crop, it will ever rise again so well on being planted for the 

 second time. 



The following short injunctions, which are mostly of the negative 

 sort, may perhaps be useful to the young planter. Never plant the Oals: 

 on a light sandy soil, if of a thin and shallow quality. In such a situa- 

 tion it never will become a tree, and seldom rise to the size of a vigor- 

 ous bush. Never plant it upon real moss or peat, as it will become 

 black at the heart. Never plant the Lime, Sycamore, or Horse-chestnut 

 on wet or even loamy land with a clay bottom. All of these trees 

 require depth, with a dry subsoil ; but the Oak will thrive surprisingly 

 well on very obdurate clay, both above and below. Never plant at all 



