General Instructions. 



for ever ; and, into tlie bargain, more than a thousand poor 

 people would have been driven from the skirts of the 

 forest, to seek shelter in the filthy outskirts of towns and 

 villages. I counted, as I came over the fiat of the forest, 

 live hundred and seventy-two horses, cows, heifers, and 

 pigs, every one of which was, I dare say, the property of 

 some cottager. The ruin would have been of a character 

 and extent most dreadful. I dare say that more than a 

 thousand geese are reared upon the land of this forest : all 

 this was to have been swept away; this most fertile garden 

 for Oak Timber was to have been destroyed; saplings as 

 well as timber trees were to be felled ; and the Crown was 

 to have a precious part of its rights alienated for ever; and 

 all this to gratify the greedy desires of a set of stupid men, 

 who could not see with patience the poor have the benefit 

 of even these blades of grass; and AA'ho conceived the 

 brilliant idea of growing immense crops of corn upon a 

 bed of sheer clay, in which Oak trees thrive most admira- 

 bly, but which will not bear one bushel of wheat, until, in 

 some shape or another, it has first swallowed up the value 

 of two bushels. To the great honour of the House of 

 Lords, they threw out the Bill, for which they deserved 

 the thanks of every man of sense, and they have already 

 received the blessings of the numerous cottagers, whom 

 their justice and wisdom saved from utter ruin. 



65. After this digression, for which, I trust, no great 

 apology will be required, I return to the subject of para- 

 graph 55, to Avhich the reader will, for a moment, have 

 the goodness to turn back; I there was beginning to 

 give instructions, relative to the age and size, and to the 

 pruning of the roots, of smaller trees. The age and the 

 size may be different in different sorts of trees; and, 

 as this matter will be spoken of under the head of each 



