Af/riculturc of Berkshire. 
3 
inonts. I will not, however, pass on furtlier wltliout con2:r;itn- 
latiiig; my brother-larmers tliat one recommendation in that 
Report has never been adopted : I refer to the preservation and 
encouragement of the growth of timber. The author, after 
lamenting? that the quantity of timber was most perceptibly 
diminishing^ in our island ; that every kind was nearly doubled 
in })rice ; and that no sooner did a youn<? man come into the 
possession of his estate than he frequently began to strip it of its 
timber in order to discharge the debts he had often wantonly 
contracted, suggests, that when neither the interest of descendants 
nor the public welfare have any effect on the conduct of pro- 
prietors of woodlands, it is time that the control should be dele- 
gated to other hands, and that the sanction and enactment of 
laws should be called in as auxiliaries to effect what a sense of 
duty fails to accomplish. " A law therefore," he says, " to restrain 
proprietors from cutting down trees not arrived at perfection, 
and to compel them to plant two in a suitable situation in the 
room of each one felled would neither be arbitrary nor unjust." 
I need hardlv say that fifty years ago such opinions may have 
been held with some degree of reason. Since steam-power has 
brought to our shores the produce of the immense foi'ests of 
Canada and the north, which* is superior in quality to our own 
for most purposes, at a cost which has greatly lowered the price 
of timber; and since iron has been largely used for ship-building, 
we need hardly be apprehensive of that want which he so much 
dreaded. All practical men are pretty well agreed that timber 
and corn cannot be grown together to advantage ; that hedge- 
rows are a great bar to agricultural improvement ; the British 
farmer, therefore, invariably rejoices when the axe is put to 
work. 
Statistics OF Population, Area, Rates, and County 
Expenses. 
Berkshire is an inland county of very irregular form, extend- 
ing from 51° 19' to 51° 48' N. lat., and from 34' 30" to 1° 43' 
W. long. ; its extreme length is 48 miles, greatest breadth 29 
miles, and circumference 208 miles ; it comprehends an area of 
734 square miles ; and, according to the population returns of 
1851, 451,040 acres, or, according to the assessments to county- 
rate, 450,358 acres. There are various accounts of the area of the 
county, but I believe the above to be the most correct. The 
'Parliamentary Gazetteer' says that it comprehends an area of 
752 square miles, and consequently 481,280 acres, or, according 
to the population retvirns of 1831, 472,270 acres; these figures 
are evidently taken from Arrowsmith's great map of England ; 
and as there are many insulated parts in the county, in the neigh- 
B 2 
