OF FOREST-TREES. 17 



these plantations can afford that gain, the Brabant nurseries, and divers CHAP. I. 

 home-plantations of industrious persons, are sufficient to convince the ^^V^ 

 gainsayer. And when, by this husbandry, a few Acorns shall have sup- 

 plied the neighbouring regions with young stocks and trees, the residue 

 will become groves, and copses of infinite delight and satisfaction to the 

 planters. Besides, we daily see what coarse lands will bear these stocks, 

 (suppose them Oaks, Walnuts, Chestnuts, Pines, Fir, Ash, Wild Pears, 

 Crabs, &c.) and some of them (as for instance, the Pear and the Fir, or 

 Pine) strike their roots through the roughest and most impenetrable rocks 

 and clefts of stone itself; and others require not any rich or pinguid, but 

 very moderate soil ; especially if committed to it in seeds, which allies 

 them to their mother and nurse without renitency or regret : And then 

 considering what assistances a little care in easing and stirring of the 

 ground about them, for a few years, does afford them ; what cannot 

 a strong plough, a winter mellowing, and summer heats, incorporated 

 with the pregnant turf, or a slight assistance of lime, loam, sand, rotten 

 compost, discreetly mixed, (as the case may require,) perform even in the 

 most unnatural and obstinate soil ? And in such places where anciently 

 woods have grown, but are now unkind to them, the fault is to be 

 reformed by this care ; and chiefly by a sedulous extirpation of the old 

 remainders of roots, and latent stumps, which, by their mustiness, and 

 other pernicious qualities, sour the ground, and poison the conception : 

 And herewith let me put in this note, that even an over-rich and pinguid 

 composition is by no means the proper bed either for the seminary or 

 nursery, whilst even the natural soil itself does frequently discover and 

 point best to the particular species, though some are for all places alike ; 

 nor should the earth be yet perpetually cropped with the same, or other 

 seeds, without due repose, but lie some time fallow to receive the 

 influence of heaven according to good husbandry. But I shall say no 



■ The ingenious Dr. Priestley, in a paper presented to the Royal Society in 1772, 

 on different kinds of air, among many interesting and important discoveries, proves to a 

 demonstration that the putrid air arising from" dunghills and the perspiration of animals, is 

 not only absorbed by vegetables, but also adds to their increase. Though this power in 

 vegetables was undoubtedly known long before the publication of the Doctor's philoso- 

 phical works, yet, so far as I know, we had not any correct experiments, before his time, 

 in proof of it. The world, therefore, is indebted to Dr. Priestley alone, for the experi- 

 Volume I. K 



