A
OF FOREST-TREES.
timber was a revenue coming on whilst thecommanded his servants immediately to plant inample, Oaks, Ashes, and other profitable and marketable trees, to thenumber of an hundred thousand; as undoubtedly calculating, that eachof those trees might be worth twenty-pence, before his daughter becamemarriageable, which would amount to 100,000 Francs,) near ten thousandpounds sterling) and this he intended to be given with his daughter fora portion. This was good philosophy, and such as I am afsured was fre-quently practised in Flanders, upon the veiy same account; Let us see itonce take effect amongst our many slothful gentry, who have certainly aslarge demesnes, and yet are so deficient in that decent point of timelyproviding for their numerous children; and those who have none, letthem the rather plant: Trees and Vegetables have perpetuated somenames longer and better than a pedigree of a numerous offspring, as I havealready showed ; and it were a pledge of a noble mind, to oblige the fu-ture age by our particular industry, and by a long lasting train, with theliving work of our own hands. But I now proceed to more general con-cerns in order to the Quasries and first to the Proportion.
It were just, and infinitely befitting the miserable needs of the wholenation, that every twenty acres of pasture made an allowance for half anacre of timber, the ground dug about Christmas , casting the grafsy sidedownwards till June ; then dug again, and about Noyember stirredafresh, and sown with mast, or planted in a clump, well preserved andfenced for fourteen or fifteen years, unlefs that sheep might haply grazeabout four or five years: And where the young trees stand too thick, thereto draw and transplant them into the hedge-rows, which would also proveexcellent shelter for the cattle : This husbandry would more especiallybecome Northamptonshire , Lincolnshire, Cornwall, and such other of ourcounties as are the most naked of timber, fuel, &c. and unprovidedof covert; for it is rightly observed, that the most fruitful places leastabound in wood, and do the most stand in need of it:
SOS
owners were asleep) chap. vii.his lands, which were