Age^ Size^ Roots^ 



old and large tree?, no man in his sober senses would think 

 of doing such a thing upon a large scale, and especially for 

 profit. People who are in haste to get trees round, or near, 

 a house, or round a domestic enclosure, plant large trees 

 for the purpose ; but, if they happen to plant small ones at 

 the same time, they soon discover that the large ones are 

 of no use. There is a very happy illustration of this, on the 

 side of the great western road, on the left, going up the 

 hill from Virginia Water towards Bagshot, in a plantation, 

 made about twelve years ago. The ground was, I think, 

 trenched, but, in all probability, not keeping the top soil at 

 top, though the nature of the ground demanded it. There 

 was a promiscuous mixture of firs and deciduous trees of a 

 proper enough age and size ; and, though the latter have 

 never been cut down and otherwise properly managed, 

 these young trees make, all together, a show of wood ; they 

 hide a six-feet paling from within, and you see some of their 

 tops over it from without. But, at the same time that the 

 young trees were planted, there were planted along the 

 middle of the strip, or belt, a row of large trees. They were 

 about ten or twelve feet high, when the plantation was 

 made, and there might be about a hundred of them in all. 

 They were evidently intended to be a magnificent row of 

 trees, to be seen from the mansion, which is about half a 

 mile back. Alas! they have, according to the vulgar saying, 

 grown like a cow's tail " : they have literally grown 

 downwards, till there is, I think, only two of them to be seen. 

 The ground is of the eleventh sort, mentioned in paragraph 

 9. Very [)oor; it lies high^ the spot is bleak. When the 

 trees were planted, they were propped up by, and tied to, 

 stakes. The wind and wet soon destroyed these protectors. 

 The trees, in great part, died outright; and the whole of 

 those that did not die, do not now make, all put together, 

 a mass of wood, twigs and leaves, equal to that which is 



