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considerable income from the thinning of the woods. In Scotland the same change is very visible. along the borders the good lands are beautifully cultivated, the bad extensively planted. From the dreary flats about Gretna Green to the borders of Northumberland and Berwickshire, this is the case. Passing

into Scotland by the Cheviots, we saw extensive woods on the border lands of the Duke of Northumberland, Earl Tankerville, Mr. Collingwood, Mr. St. Paul, etc. The cold and wild tract between Kelso and Edinburgh presents cheering appearances of the extension of the planting spirit. In the counties of Argyle, Ross, and Inverness, which Monteith of Stirling, in his Forester's Guide, particularly points out as wanting wood, we were struck with the great extent of planting already done. Every summer tourist up the Clyde sees how much the woods round Roseneath have sheltered and beautified it-and the woods around Inverary Castle are, to a great extent, very splendid— while all the way thence to Oban you pass through mountain glens and over moorlands enriched with woods. The Duke of Athol, about Athol and Dunkeld has planted upwards of 15,000 acres. The Duke of Montrose has been a great planter. Sir Walter Scott was a diligent planter, as the young woods round Abbotsford testify; and there are no moments of his life in which we can imagine him happier than when mounted on his pony he progressed through his plantations at his leisure, with his pruning knife in his hand. But what he did on his own estate is trivial to what he did by his writings. planted more trees by his has with his spade.

He

He may be said to have pen than any man alive himself tells us that the

simple words put into the mouth of the Laird of Dumbiedikes, and placed as a motto at the head of this chapter, induced a certain earl to plant a large tract of country.

In the neighbourhood of Dingwall, Beuley, Beaufort, from Inverness to Culloden, in short, in almost every part of the Highlands,-you find extensive young woods of larch and pine. Many of these, it must be confessed, have apparently been made with more regard to profit than beauty. In many of the sweet straths, and along the feet of the mountains, the long monotonous reaches of larch-an unbroken, unvaried succession of pointed pyramids— present but an indifferent contrast to the free slopes of beauty which the native growth of the birches exhibits; dotting glens and embosoming lochs with a fairyland loveliness. As they become large, and are thinned properly, or rather, where they are planted thinly, on the plan of the Duke of Athol, this defect may be remedied. Scotch firs, when large, assume a wild forest majesty; and larches in mountainous situations, of an ancient growth, have an Alpine sweep of boughs that is extremely picturesque and graceful; but young crowded firs of any kind are too formal for beauty.

Mr. Wordsworth, in his Guide to the Lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland, complains grievously of the injury done to the scenery there, by the injudicious planting of larch. "Larch and fir plantations have been spread, not merely with a view to profit, but in many instances for the sake of ornament. those who plant for profit, and are thrusting every other tree out of the way, to make room for their

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favourite, the larch, I would utter first a regret, that they should have selected these lovely vales for their vegetable manufactory, when there is so much barren and irreclaimable land in the neighbouring moors, and in other parts of the island, which might have been had for this purpose at a far cheaper rate.—It must be acknowledged that the larch, till it has outgrown the size of a shrub, shews, when looked at singly, some elegance of form and appearance, especially in spring, decorated, as it then is, by the pink tassels of its blossoms; but, as a tree, it is less than any other pleasing. Its branches-for boughs it has none-have no variety in the youth of the tree, and little dignity even when it attains its full growth; leaves it cannot be said to have, consequently affords neither shade nor shelter. In spring, the larch becomes green long before the native trees, and its green is so peculiar and vivid, that, finding nothing to harmonize with it, wherever it comes forth a disagreeable speck is produced. In summer, when all other trees are in their pride, it is of a dingy, lifeless hue; in autumn, of a spiritless unvaried yellow; and in winter, it is still more lamentably distinguished from any other deciduous tree of the forest, for they seem only to sleep, but the larch seems absolutely dead. If an attempt be made to mingle thickets, or a certain proportion of other forest trees, with the larch, its horizontal branches intolerantly cut them down, as with a scythe, or force them to spindle up to keep pace with it. The terminating spike renders it impossible that the several trees, where planted in numbers, should ever blend together so as to form a mass, or masses of wood. Add thousands to tens of

thousands, and the appearance is still the same-a collection of separate individual trees, obstinately presenting themselves as such; and which, from whatever point they are looked at, if but seen, may be counted upon the fingers. Sunshine, or shadow, has little power to adorn the surface of such a wood; and the trees not carrying up their heads, the wind raises amongst them no majestic undulations."

There is much truth in these remarks, and they cannot be too much borne in mind by all planters where picturesque beauty is an object. On dreary moors, where the larch is planted merely for profit, and where the tout-ensemble cannot readily be attained, woods of it often present a great degree of pleasantness by contrast. They give you green glades and narrow footpaths, between heath and fern, their slender boughs hanging above you, especially in the freshness of their foliage, very agreeably.

As a

matter of profit, and for the value of its timber, few species of wood can compete with it. The following extract from the Transactions of the Highland Society, gives a very striking view of its importance. "Larch will supply ship-timber at a great height above the region of the oak; and while a seventy-four gun ship will require the oak timber of seventy-five acres, it will not require more than the timber of ten acres of larch; the trees in both cases being sixtyeight years old. The larch, at Dunkeld, grows at the height of 1300 feet above the level of the sea; the spruce at 1200; the Scotch pine at 700; and deciduous trees at not higher than 500. The larch, in comparison with the Scotch pine, is found to produce three and three-quarter times more timber, and that

timber of seven times more value. The larch also, being a deciduous tree, instead of injuring the pasture under it, improves it. The late Duke of Athol, John the Second, planted in the last year of his life, 6500 Scotch acres of mountain ground solely with the larch, which in the course of seventy-two years from the time of planting, will be a forest of timber fit for the building of the largest class of ships in his majesty's navy. It will have been thinned out to about 400 trees per acre. Each tree will contain at the least fifty cubic feet, or one load of timber, which at the low price of one shilling the cubic foot, only one half of its present value, will give 1000l. per acre, or in all, a sum of 6,500,000l. sterling. Besides this, there will have been a return of 77. per acre from the thinnings, after deducting all expense of thinning, and the original outlay of planting. Further still, the land on which the larch is planted, is not worth above ninepence or one shilling per acre. After the thinnings of the first thirty years, the larch will make it worth at least ten shillings per acre by the improvement of the pasturage, on which cattle can be kept summer and winter."

That is pretty well. This calculation is made upon land stated at Is. per acre, planted with larch; but Monteith, an experienced timber planter and valuer, gives us for oak planted on land of 17. per acre yearly rent, the following statement.

"If the proprietor, for instance, plants 100 acres of ground, the trees being placed four feet distant from each other, each acre will contain 3422 plants. If it be planted with hard woods, chiefly oaks, and a few firs to nurse them up, supposing it is a plantation