82 



A DISCOURSE 



preferable to any thing we have yet beheld, rude and neglected as they 

 are. I say, when his Majesty shall proceed, as he hath designed, to 

 animate this laudable pride into fashion, forests and woods, as well as 

 fields and inclosures, will present us with another face than now they 

 do. And here I cannot but applaud the worthy industry of old Sir Har- 

 botle Grimstone, who, I am told, from a very small Nursery of Acorns, 



planted their trees too old ; so that many of these woods, wlien they come to be felled, 

 will greatly disappoint the expectations of the purchasers. Besides, such advanced trees 

 when drawn from the nursery, unless planted in a good soil, will never come to good timber. 

 On the contrary, rocky and poor soils may be made to produce excellent timber by judi- 

 ciously sowing the seeds, and carefully defending the young plants from the browsing of 

 sheep and cattle, or the cropping of hares and rabbits. By this practice, the plants are 

 attached to their native earth, and are strangers to the inconveniences that trees taken from 

 a nursery are exposed to. 



In Scotland, and in some of the northern counties of this kingdom, the practice of sowing 

 their waste lands with acorns, chestnuts, beech-mast, fir-seeds, ash-keys, &c. is much re- 

 commended, and there is not the least doubt, but that postei'ity will enjoy the benefits 

 arising from this judicious practice. The expense attending the sowing an acre of waste 

 land with various seeds of forest-trees, is trifling when compared with that of planting ; 

 and if all other things were equal, that alone would be decisive. In the neighbourhood 

 of coal and lead mines, and iron forges, such woods will become highly profitable at an 

 early period ; and considering the great demand that is constantly made from such places 

 for all kinds of wood, it is matter of surprise that the cheap method of raising woods from 

 seeds and seedling plants has been so long neglected. 



In some parts of Scotland, the seedling firs are put into the earth without any sort of pre- 

 paration. A hole being bored through the heath with an iron instrument, made in the form 

 of a large gimblet, the seedling is immediately introduced. By this management the soil 

 is prevented from opening in hot weather to the prejudice of the young plant. Instead of 

 being pointed, the instrument is flattened at the extremity, like a chisel, with a nick in it, 

 by which the plant is drawn down to the bottom of the hole made to receive it. But of 

 this I shall probably have occasion to speak more fully on the chapter upon Firs. 



I have already remarked, that under every circumstance of sowing or planting, espe- 

 cially the former, the utmost care must be taken to fence off" the young plants, lest cattle and 

 sheep should break in and render the pains of the planter abortive : 



Texendae sepes etiam, et pecus omne tenendum est : 

 PiKcipue duin frons fenera imprudensque laborum : 

 Cui super indignas hyemes, solemque potentem, 

 Sylvestres uri assidue capreseque sequaces 

 Illidunt: Pascuntur oves, avidiequc juvencae. 



