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physical science, as by the anatomy of distortion and propor- 

 tion, we learn to measure the harmony of grace and beauty. 

 Mr. Major represents himself as forcibly struck with the 

 necessity of something being done on a subject so important, 

 he having noticed plantations that had stood at least thirty 

 years, the trees not more than from three to four feet distant, 

 and totally neglected. He mentions that, in one nobleman's 

 ' grounds, several masses of silver firs, which would have been 

 the finest of the kind he had ever seen had they been properly 

 managed, being from seventy to eighty feet high, were destitute 

 of branches to within ten and twelve feet of the top, instead 

 of being furnished nearly to the ground, as they might have 

 been, had they been planted at a proper distance at first. 

 He finally adds, " these are not mere fanciful observations, 

 ^* they are the result of attentive views." 

 ' Independent of this injurious system, I cannot consider 

 any thing so ofibnsive to the eye of a man of taste, as one 

 tree dying under the shade of another, nor any thing which 

 common sense would more repudiate. The sickly tree can 

 never arrive at maturity -itself, but, while it remains standing, 

 will rob the good one, its immediate neighbour, which might 

 arrive at maturity, of the nourishment which should go 

 towards its support; but such things I have too often been 

 obliged to witness. 



Talk to some people of mechanics and manufactures, the 

 value of canal and railway shares, the great rivals of the pre- 

 sent day, and they will give you their attention, while to this 

 subject they turn a deaf ear, and allow their woods and 

 plantations, which hold out such great profits, to go com- 

 paratively to ruin. Should any one have a young wood, and 

 commence cutting away a certain portion of it every year, 

 he is reported to be wasting his property, whereas, by taking 

 a certain portion out annually, he puts money in his pocket, 

 and is at the same time laying by a sinking fund in the 



