32 :

A DISCOURSE

preferable to any thing we have yet beheld, rude and neglected as theyare. I say, when his Majesty shall proceed, as he hath designed, toanimate this laudable pride into fashion, forests and woods, as well asfields and inclosures, will present us with another face than now theydo. 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, when they come to be felled,will greatly disappoint the expectations of the purchasers. Besides, such advanced trees'when drawn from the nursery, unlefs 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 ofsheep 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, chesnuts,- beech-mast, fir-seeds, ash-keys, &c. is much re-commended, and there is not the- least doubt,, but that posterity will enjoy the benefitsarising from this judicious practice. The expence 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 fromseeds 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 cf-being pointed, the instrument is flattened at the extremity, like a chifsel, 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 cattleand sheep should break in and render the pains of the planter abortive >

Texendx sepes etiam,.et pecus omne tenendum est;

Pracipue dum frons tenera imprudensque laborum :

Cui super indignas hvemes, solemque potentein,

Sylvestres uri afsidue capreaeque sequacesIllidunt; Pascuntur ovcs, avidxque juvenca.