WASTE-LAND PLANTING. 
185 
Another most important market for timber, 
and especially for that sort which grows on 
the worst description of land, is to be found in 
our railways, which are now being formed in 
almost every county of England. Even the 
present demand for wood has very much 
thinned the pine forests of the north; and when 
it is considered that the sleepers have all to be 
replaced ad infinitum, it becomes a matter of 
grave import to ascertain where the necessary 
supply is to come from. Every reflecting 
man must see that a great part of it at least 
must be grown ; grown, too, on those almost 
measureless tracts of what are foolishly termed 
waste or barren lands ; but which, indeed, are 
lands ready at all times to overlay themselves 
with the richest burdens which the earth can 
bear. It is to be hoped, then, that many will 
go forth carrying vegetation over those un- 
productive solitudes, which are yet every- 
where so abundant in! the north, even if 
actuated by no higher motive than a good 
return for capital expended in planting them. 
If we except North and South Wales, Lanca- 
shire, Northumberland, Cumberland, and a 
few other counties, the unoccupied land in 
England bears but a trifling proportion to the 
extent of territory not yet planted in Scot- 
land. To the latter country, therefore, the 
remarks here made apply with double force. 
It is, indeed, true that in several instances in 
that part of the kingdom, the most noble ex- 
amples have been set in reclaiming unprofit- 
able districts, but there is yet much to be 
done ; and it is all the more imperative that 
it should be done speedily, on account of the 
numerous lines of railway projected through- 
out the north. 
Thus there are two inducements to plant 
which, twenty years since, were never dreamt 
of. The old pleas for planting remain, inde- 
pendent of these, in all their force. Houses 
have still to be built, fleets to be equipped, 
the multifarious arts of peace and war to be 
prosecuted, shelter to be created in high and 
exposed situations, and over all the country 
the landscape to be enriched and variegated 
as before. Nay further; ever since royalty 
has put its hand to the good work, new classes 
of planters have arisen, representing a new 
interest, and prosecuting their views with 
a zeal and determination seldom or never 
equalled. These planters belong chiefly to 
the juvenile branches of our aristocracy, and 
are the labourers in the sentimental and his- 
toric field. So far, their exertions elicit our 
praise ; but if they would only extend their 
work beyond the park and pleasure-ground, 
and embellish the bare moor and mountain 
land, they would not only experience a higher 
degree of pleasure, but establish at once a 
substantial source of income for their lifetime. 
Never was there a greater fallacy broached) 
than that of a man's planting altogether I'or 
posterity. What has posterity to do with the 
immediate and incessant demand for hop-poles, 
which ashes and larches planted this season, 
will become in the course of five or six years? 
Or with the alder, which, planted now by still 
waters, will be ready in time to be used in the 
shape of basins, plates, kneading-troughs and 
clogs, by men and women who are at this 
instant upwards of seventy years of age? Or 
with the spruce and Scotch fir, which, after 
ten or fifteen years, may be taken down from 
the hills and mountains, and applied as fences 
for cattle, for hedges, in building sheds and 
outhouses generally, and for many other pur- 
poses of the farmer ? The whole of the poplar 
and willow tribes are for the present race ; 
and indeed one of the individuals, the white 
poplar, is absolutely worthless as a timber 
tree, if allowed to stand longer than fifty 
years, the heart-wood decaying after that time. 
It may be found that posterity has more to 
do with such things pictorially considered, 
yet the living have unquestionably their share 
in the pleasure derived from contemplating 
trees merely as objects of beauty. Loudon 
has somewhere said, that if he had been the 
owner of an old-wooded estate, the first thing 
he should have done, would have been to have 
cut down all the old trees and planted young 
ones, such was the pleasure he derived in 
watching their growth towards maturity. 
Without subscribing to such an idea in all its 
extent, it may be stated, that the development 
of young trees, wherever planted, affords very 
great gratification ; but when they are made 
to rise over scenes which have, since the cre- 
ation, yielded nothing to man, the planter 
invests himself with a character really honour- 
able. He enriches the earth, he beautifies it. 
But even supposing that many of the trees 
planted by the present generation may be 
inherited by the succeeding race, are men so 
selfish as to neglect a great and important 
duty, because, forsooth, the full benefit may 
not be reaped by themselves ? By no means. 
The spread of life insurance companies, and 
similar institutions, is sufficient to prove the 
groundlessness of the idea. 
Before proceeding to point out the kind of 
trees to be planted, &c, let a word or two be 
added on their interesting associations, and on 
their uses in embellishing a landscape. This, 
perhaps, does not appear in all its force under 
the head of waste-land planting, yet it is 
unquestionable that some of the grandest traits 
of our sylvan scenery are formed by trees 
which have risen on lands inaccessible to, or 
unfit for, the plough or spade. Besides, a tree 
often becomes just as beautiful on poor as on 
rich land ; and if the birch, larch, and pine, 
