Cultivation after Planting. 



82. I should like for some gentleman to leave a small 

 part of his plantation to take its chance in the usual way, 

 and to cultivate the rest in a proper manner. He would 

 soon find, that his additional expense would be paid for a 

 hundred fold. It is not the extent of a plantation: it is the 

 height and bulk of the trees; it is the quantity of timber^ 

 and not the breadth of land, that a man ought to look at. 

 If trees be planted at the distance that I shall give direc- 

 tions for planting them, the expense of cultivation will 

 cease very soon ; foi*, in a couple of years, their roots and 

 their shade together will have totally subdued the whole of 

 the multifarious race of the natives of the soil. The shade 

 will finish what the roots have begun; and the seeds of the 

 weeds must lie in the ground and wait patiently for the 

 felling of the plantation. There they will lie, however, till 

 the summer sun can get at them 3 and, whenever it does, 

 up they will come. 



83. Before I conclude these general remarks, I must add 

 a few relative to the (piestion ; namely, whether it be proper 

 to plant a mixture of trees in one and the same plantation ; 

 and I have to declare my opinion decidedly in the negative. 

 This is a very important matter, and merits the greatest 

 attention. 



84. If the plantation be intended to be merely orna- 

 mental, a mixture of trees may, according to some tastes, 

 be deemed desirable ; though that is not my taste ; nothing 

 appearing to me much more disagreeable to look at than 

 a ragged wood, some trees without and some trees with 

 leaves; some with their leaves still hanging on, but in a 

 half dead state, while others are pretty nearly green. 

 However, this is merely matter of taste ; I like uniformity 

 of growth and of hue 3 others may like the contrary ; and 



