The Ash. 



method of performing the work of planting, (paragraph 

 75). It will be well for the reader now to go through 

 those paragraphs again : they apply to all trees, and of 

 course it is useless to repeat here the observations which 

 they contain. 



125. But, there is to be considered the distance, which 

 plants should be planted from each other, in a plantation ; 

 and, it is evident enough that different trees will recpiire 

 different distances. I am now to speak then of the dis- 

 tance at which I would place Ash in a plantation. If the 

 plantation be made with a view to profit, which is the only 

 view which I ought to suppose the planter to have, the 

 trees ought to be planted at very little more, if any, than 

 four feet apart in every direction. If intended for under- 

 wood, as the Ash generally is, they may be planted still 

 closer ; and, I have often thought, and think still, that a 

 plantation of Ash, the rows only eighteen inches apart, and 

 the plants not more than eight or nine inches apart in the 

 row, would yield an enormous profit, if, in the first place, 

 every other row were taken out, and every other plant in 

 each of the remaining rows ; if these were taken out at the 

 end of six or seven years, they would be hoops, and that 

 too, observe of ground Ash, as the wood from these seed- 

 lings is called. The rest of the trees might remain till 

 they had a growth of ten years, by the end of which time, 

 they would, if properly treated and in pretty good ground, 

 make hop-poles of twenty-feet long. So that at the end of 

 ten years from the day of planting, an acre of land would 

 yield forty 'three thousand and sia;tt/ hoops, nm] fourteen thou- 

 sand five hundred and twenty hop-poles. The hop-poles 

 would be worth on the spot, in any part of England, two 

 pounds the hundred at least 5 and, in some parts of it, pretty 

 nearly, if not quite, twice that sum. That sum, however, 



