Although it is generally on soils unfit for cultivation that plantations of wood are made, yet there are proofs that, on a deep rich soil worth 2/. an acre as arable land, a plantation of oaks, well managed for fifty or sixty years, will pay a better rent than if it had been cultivated as a farm. On such land it is usual to plant oaks in the hedge-rows, where the trees, having room both for their branches and their roots, thrive well at the expense of the farmer. Most old farms consist of small incloeures surrounded with trees, chiefly oak, ash, and elm, according to the soil ; and the landlord, having the benefit of their growth, only cuts them when fit for sale. The tenant is scarcely aware of the annual loss he suffers from the shade of the trees, as well as the exhaustion of his manure by the roots. If the inclosures are of the extent of twenty acres or more, a few trees here and there in the banks will not do much harm ; but it would be far more advantageous to all parties if the woods and plantations were entirely separated from the arable Lust. A few single trees here and there in old pastures are both ornamental and useful as shelter for the eittle; but they should be extirpated in all arable fields. Clumps and woods may be made pictures in the scenery, whereas a country consisting of small inelosures surrounded with trees only looks like an immense wood when seen from a small eminence.
Trees of full size are sometimes transplanted to form shelter and ornament to parks and pleasure grounds. Sir Joseph Banks made some experiments in his grounds near 13rentford, by cutting off the heads of old elm trees and transplanting the trunks by way of keeping up a proportion between the head and the roots, in the expectation of their growing out, but it failed entirely. Sir James Stuart Monteith, in
Scotland, succeeded better by retaining the head, and saving, as much as possible, all the fibres of the roots. The removal of large trees is a troublesome and expensive process, but is often desirable for the pro duction of immediate effect, as in laying-out parks and pleasure-grounds, or in landscape gardening generally. The method now usually adopted is briefly described under PLANTINO. coL 553.
Wood is too valuable in Britain to be used for fuel, except in very distant and woody districts. Coals have everywhere superseded it ; but wherever woods are cut down, and especially where time roots are grubbed up, they give an excellent and economical fuel for the poor, or to use in the limo and brick kilns. Where old hedge-rows are cleared in the progress of agriculture, it is a commit practice to give the stumps and roots found in old banks to the poor, for the trouble of grubbing them up and levelling the ground. This work is generally done in winter ; and the wood is stacked into cords six feet long, three feet wide, and three feet high.
In France and other countries where they use chiefly wood for fuel, the trees which are preferred are beech-trees, which are allowed to grow very close in the woods, so as to draw each other up and form long thin stems. They are cut down when about thirty or forty years old, and then do not average a foot in diameter; they are sawn in lengths of a yard, and thus sold, the purchaser generally having them sawn into shorter lengths and split for use. In Paris the trade in wood is very extrusive, and employs ninny hands.