be ridiculous to be at the trouble or expense of raising the plants. But where he proposes to plant upon a large scale, it is of the highest consequence that the young plants should stand for two or three seasons in a nursery of his own. Mr Monteath recommends that such second-hand nursery, as he terms it, should be replenished with seedlings of a year or two years old, from the seed-beds of a professional nurseryman, justly observing that the expense and trouble attending the raising the plants from seed,—and, he might have added, the risk of miscarriage,—are in this way entirely avoided, while the advantages attained are equal to what they would have been had the plant been raised from the seed by the proprietor himself. On the other hand (though we have known it practised), we would not advise that seedlings, any more than plants, should be carried from the neighbourhood of Glasgow to the Hebrides, or to distant parts of the Highlands. There is also this advantage, that by raising the trees from seed, the forester makes sure of getting his plants from the best trees-an article of considerable importance, especially in the fir tribes.

But whether the planter supplies his nursery from his own seed-bed or that of the professional man, the necessity of having a nursery of one sort or other continues the same. The advantages are, first, that the plants are not hastily transferred from the nurseryman's warm and sheltered establishment, to the exposed and unfertile district which they are meant to occupy, but undergo a

sort of seasoning in the nursery of the proprietor, and become, in a certain degree, naturalized to climate and soil before they are, as it is technically termed, planted out. Secondly, the most mortifying and injurious interruptions, incident to the planter's occupation, are thus greatly lessened. It is well known that nothing can be so conducive to the success of a plant, as its being transferred instantly, or with the loss of the least possible interval of time, from the line which it occupies in the nursery, to its final station in the field. If it is to be sent for to a distant nursery, this becomes impossible. Besides, it frequently happens, when plants have been brought from a distance, that the weather has changed to frost before they arrive at the place of their destination, and there is no remedy but to dig them down into some ditch, and cover the roots with earth, and leave them in that situation for days and weeks, until the season shall again become favourable to the planter. If, on the contrary, the plants are supplied from the proprietor's own nursery in the vicinity, they need only be brought forward in small quantities at a time, and the pernicious and perilous practice of sheughing, as we have heard it called, is almost entirely avoided. It is, therefore, in all cases, a matter of high advantage, in many of actual necessity, that the proprietor who means to plant on a large scale should have a nursery of his own.

Thus provided with the material of his enterprise, and with the human force necessary to carry it into effect, the planter's next point is to choose

the scene of operation. On this subject, reason and common sense at once point out the necessary restrictions. No man of common sense would select, for the purpose of planting, rich holms, fertile meadows, or other ground peculiarly fit for producing corn, or for supporting cattle. Such land, valuable everywhere, is peculiarly so in a country where fertile spots are scarce, and where there is no lack of rough, exposed, and at present unprofitable tracts. The necessary ornament of a mansionhouse would alone vindicate such an extraordinary proceeding. Nay, a considerate planter would hesitate to cut up and destroy even a fine sheep-pasture for the purpose of raising wood, while there remained on the estate land which might be planted at a less sacrifice. The ground ought to be shared betwixt pasture and woodland, with reference to local circumstances, and it is in general by no means difficult to form the plantation so as to be of the highest advantage to the sheepwalk. In making the selection the proprietor will generally receive many a check on this subject from his land-steward or bailiff, to whom any other agricultural operations are generally more desirable than the pursuits of the forester. confirm the proprietor in resisting this narrowminded monitor, it is necessary to assure him that the distinction to be drawn betwixt the ground to be planted and that which is to be reserved for sheep, is to be drawn with a bold and not a timid hand. The planter must not, as we have often seen vainly attempted, endeavour to exclude from

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his proposed plantation, all but the very worst of the ground. Whenever such paltry saving has been attempted, the consequences have been very undesirable in all respects. In the first place, the expense of fencing is greatly increased; for, in order to form these pinched and restricted plantations, a great many turnings and involutions, and independent fences, must be made, which become totally unnecessary when the woodland is formed on an ample and liberal scale. In the second place, this parsimonious system leads to circumstances contrary to Christian charity, for the eyes of every human being that looks on plantations so formed, feeling hurt as if a handful of sand were flung into them, the sufferers are too apt to vent their resentment in the worst of wishes against the devisers and perpetrators of such enormities. We have seen a brotherhood of beautiful hills, the summits of which, while they remained unplanted, must have formed a fine undulating line, now presenting themselves with each a round circle of black fir, like a skimming dish on its head, combined together with long narrow lines of the same complexion, like a chain of ancient fortifications, consisting of round towers flanking a straight curtain, or rather like a range of college caps connected by a broad black ribbon. Other plantations in the awkward angles, which they have been made to assume, in order that they might not trespass upon some edible portion of grass land, have come to resemble uncle Toby's bowlinggreen transported to a northern hill side. Here

you shall see a solitary mountain with a great black patch stuck on its side, like a plaster of Burgundy-pitch, and there another, where the plantation, instead of gracefully sweeping down to its feet, is broken short off in mid-air, like a country wench's gown tucked through her pocket holes in the days when such things as pockets were extant in rerum naturâ. In other cases of enormity, the unhappy plantations have been made to assume the form of pincushions, of hatchets, of penny tarts, and of breeches displayed at an old-clothesman's door. These abortions have been the consequence of a resolution to occupy with trees only those parts of the hill where nothing else will grow, and which, therefore, is carved out for their accommodation, with" up and down and snip and slash," whatever unnatural and fantastic forms may be thereby assigned to their boundaries.

In all such cases the insulated trees, deprived of the shelter which they experience when planted in masses, have grown thin, and hungrily, affording the unhappy planter neither pleasure to his eye, credit to his judgment, nor profit to his purse. A more liberal projector would have adopted a very different plan. He would have considered, that although trees, the noblest productions of the vegetable realm, are of a nature extremely hardy, and can grow where not even a turnip could be raised, they are yet sensible of, and grateful for, the kindness which they receive. In selecting the portions of waste land which he is about to plant, he would, therefore, extend his limits to what may be called