The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Summary of Principles Illustrated In the First Volume.
• Life In the Wilds.
• Chapter I.: What Have They Left Us?
• Chapter II.: What Is Wealth?
• Chapter III.: Earn Your Bread Before You Eat It.
• Chapter IV.: Hand-work and Head-work.
• Chapter V.: Heart-work.
• Chapter VI.: Many Hands Make Quick Work.
• Chapter VII.: Getting Up In the World.
• Chapter VIII.: A Bright Sunset.
• Chapter IX.: Signs of the Times.
• Hill and the Valley.
• Chapter I.: Every Man His Whim.
• Chapter II.: Much May Come of Little.
• Chapter III.: The Harm of a Whim.
• Chapter IV.: Prosperity.
• Chapter V.: How to Use Prosperity.
• Chapter VI.: Disasters.
• Chapter VII.: Discontents.
• Chapter VIII.: Uproar.
• Chapter IX.: All Quiet Again.
• Summary of Principles Illustrated In This Volume.
• Brooke and Brooke Farm.
• Chapter I.: Brooke and Its Politicians.
• Chapter II.: George Gray's Way of Living.
• Chapter III.: George Gray In the Way to Prosper.
• Chapter IV.: A Conversation Under the Limes.
• Chapter V.: Past, Present, and to Come.
• Chapter VI.: Sergeant Rayne's Story.
• Chapter VII.: Great Changes At Brooke.
• Chapter VIII.: Small Farming.
• Chapter IX.: Great Joy At Brooke.
• Chapter X.: What Joe Harper Saw Abroad.
• Chapter XI.: What Must Come At Last.
• Chapter XII.: Prosperity to Brooke!
• Summary of Principles Illustrated In This Volume.

Chapter V.

PAST, PRESENT, AND TO COME.

A large portion of the newly-inclosed land belonged to Sir Henry Withers, whose plantations were celebrated in verse, as we have seen, in company with Mr. Malton's fields. Sir Henry had had a world of trouble in laying his plans about these plantations; for, in addition to the discontents of the people about the common, he had met with opposition from other quarters. Every arable cultivator grumbled over Malton's pastures and Withers's woods by turns. Every shepherd looked upon every spot occupied by a tree as so much food taken from his flock. Sir Henry's bailiff himself could not bear to see a rood of ground that was worth any thing for other purposes devoted to planting, and was continually offering his advice as to how much should be taken in, and how large a sweep the fences should make. If his master had followed his advice, his plantations would not only have made a very extraordinary zig-zag patchwork, but the expense of fencing round so many odd angles would have exceeded the saving in good land; to say nothing of the advantage lost to the trees planted in a poor soil by having none of the protection of more flourishing neighbours. Sir Henry and his forester laughed together at the idea of having his plantations look like an assortment of pincushions, and of rearing a mile of fence where half a mile would do, for the sake of saving a few acres more for the plough. These two carried their point against all the little world of Brooke; and the future woods were appointed to sweep round the foot of this hill, to retire into yonder hollow, to wave on the top of that healthy slope, and to shelter from the north winds all this expanse of corn-fields. It was a delight to the imagination to picture what they would be a hundred years hence, when hanging woods would ornament a landscape at present bare and barren.

It was partly this pleasure, and partly the activity of the scene, which made us love to watch the process of planting. The inclosing was the first work; and we were for stone time in dread that stone walls would be the kind of fence fixed upon, as the soil was too poor for a quickset hedge, considering the great extent to which it must have been carried; and fences of furze and larch would have required too much attention in the neighbourhood of such large flocks of sheep as Mr. Malton's. Sir Henry, however, could not tolerate the idea of stone walls any more than ourselves, and determined to construct an earthen fence which might last for nine or ten years, by which time the thinnings of the plantations might provide a substitute. A ditch was dug, sloping outwards but presenting a straight cut of a foot and a half next the plantation, on the verge of which was raised a wall of sods, three or four feet high, round the top of which ran a single bar of paling.

The next operation was to drain those portions of the soil which required it—a trouble and expense which, though great at first, becomes less and less burdensome every year; since, if the drains are properly kept open and scoured, so that the water may remain pure enough to nourish the trees, it will be gradually absorbed by them, so as to turn a swampy into a firm soil. The marking out of the road and paths was done at the same time with the draining, as one ditch served to drain the road on one side and the plantation on the other. This part of the work was the most agreeable of all to lookers-on, and to a man of taste like Sir Henry, who saw how much of the use and beauty of his woods depended on this part of his plan. He pointed out with delight how air would be conducted into the recesses of the groves by these pathways; and how the road, now barely marked out with the spade, would soon become a dry green sward, where the fellings of the woods would be hereafter collected, and where their owner might go to and fro to watch how his forest nurslings throve.

Our next curiosity was to know what trees Sir Henry meant to plant the most of. There were to be oaks, of course; but a far greater proportion of larch. “Larch! ugly, mean-looking larch!” we exclaimed; and went on to rail against its appearance when planted in small patches, or on the ridge of a hill, cr sloping away from the wind. But Sir Henry told us that if we had seen forests of larch we should have had a very different idea of its beauty. He had been in Switzerland; and he described to us the sublimity of the woods there, where the mountains are clothed with larch as high as any vegetation can stretch, and where the tender green of its young shoots in spring is as beautiful as its sober autumn shade is grand. To comfort us under our complaints that we were never likely to look upon Swiss mountains, he told us that we need go no farther than Scotland to see what a forest of larches might be made. He owned, however, that he had regarded use more than beauty in his choice of the larch. This tree grows better on exposed and poor soils than in rich and sheltered situations;—not so fast, certainly; but its timber is of a better texture, and it is free from blight. The oak and ash, therefore, were planted on the best parts of Sir Henry's grounds; and the rest was given up to the larch, which was expected to grow more rapidly than all the trees of the forest besides, to furnish wood as tough and durable as that of the oak, and moreover to improve the quality of the ground as rapidly and effectually as could be done by any other process. By the annual casting of its leaves, the larch enriches the soil beneath as with a regular supply of manure. The coarse heath gradually disappears, and the finer grasses spring up, till a larch wood becomes, from being a barren moor, a pasture land carpeted with white clover: a wonderful change to take place without any assistance from human labour beyond that of putting larch plants into the ground. The plantation may be used as pasture without injury to the young trees, after a ten years' growth; and hence arise other advantages,— shade to the flock in summer, warmth in winter, and shelter from the storm. What wonder that Sir Henry planted many larches!

Few rural employments are more interesting to the by-stander than that of planting. I have stood for hours with my brothers, watching the people at their work. First a labourer took off with his spade about a foot of turf, and laid it aside, while he dug the pit, and broke the clods, and loosened the soil near. Then his wife, if he had one, or his boy, placed the plant, just brought from the nursery, in the earth, and spread the roots abroad in their natural direction, taking especial care not to twist or bruise the tender fibres which draw nourishment from the soil. Then the pit was filled up; the earth being first gently sprinkled over the roots, and afterwards turned in and trodden down. The turf was next cut in two with the spade and laid upside down on each side of the plant, so as to meet round its stem. The purpose of reversing the turf is that the nursling may not be affected by drought, or injured by the growth of grass or weeds close beside it. We were sure never to be long at any one spot without seeing either Sir Henry or his forester, who were always going their rounds among the labourers. They told us that no one thing is so much to he dreaded in the work of plantation as slovenliness in putting the plants into the ground; and as it was impossible to convince the labourers of all the mischief of bruising or twisting the roots, there was nothing for it but keeping an eye upon them continually, to see that they did not make more haste than good speed. For this reason, planting was not in the present case, as in too many, done by contract; but even here, where the labourers were paid by the day, they were apt to grow impatient and think it foolish to fiddle-faddle about the root-fibres of a tree as carefully as about the tender organs of an infant. They made many attempts, too, in order to save trouble, to bring more plants at a time from the nursery than they could set before night: but the forester having once found half-a-dozen covered over in a ditch during a frost, made such vehement complaints, that thenceforward the nurslings were removed as they were wanted and in security.

I began this winter by admiring Sir Henry's benevolence to future generations more than I saw reason to do afterwards, I imagined that he would reap none of the fruits of his present outlay of trouble and capital, and that all that he did in planting was for the sake of his children and his country. He did consider both. He was well aware of the value of an ample supply of timber to a nation like ours, whose naval resources can never be too plentiful, and whose magnificent works of art create a perpetual demand for the treasures of the forest. He was mindful, also, of the vast increase to the value of his estates which he might provide by planting his inferior lands; but, with all this, he hoped, as it was fair he should, that his own revenues would be improved by the same means, perhaps before he had passed the middle of life. I was present one day when he was pointing out to my father the difference in his mode of planting two portions of land, and the comparative profit he expected to receive in a few years.

“These fifty acres, you observe,” said he, “are not for pasturage, though you see two larches to one oak. Half the larches are to remain for timber trees; the other half are nurses, and will be thinned out in five or six years.”

“O dear!” interrupted I, “before they are large enough to be of any use.”

“I expect they will pay me,” he continued, “for the outlay on all these fifty acres. They would be worth little if we lived far away from any population but that of our own estates; but there is demand enough for bark, for poles, &c., to take off all I shall have to dispose of. The bark will sell for about half as much as oak bark; I suppose it will fetch from four to five pounds a ton. The quality of the wood is so good, that stakes and poles of it are in great request for gates and palings. The smaller sticks I may want myself; or if not, Mr. Malton or other farmers will be glad of them for supports for their sheep nets, when the flocks are eating turnips off the ground. They sell at about a shilling a dozen.”

“You will pay yourself in six years at farthest,” said my father. “Do you expect to make more or less of those other fifty acres where you plant larch only?”

“More in the long run, but nothing for ten years or upwards. I have not planted so close there, you see; so that there will be no thinning at the end of five years. The original expense of planting is less, of course;—about twenty shillings an acre, at the most. Then we must remember the rent of the soil, which is perhaps a shilling an acre.”

“Then to this thirty shillings an acre,” observed my father, “you must add the ten years' interest, and the outlay on inclosing; there are no other expenses, I think?”

“Not any. There are twelve hundred larches on each acre. I shall remove one-third in ten years; and it will be strange if the bark and timber of four hundred do not pay all the expenses we have mentioned, with compound interest. Then I shall have eight hundred trees on every acre, the very lowest value of which will be ten pounds; and the ground will be worth four times what it is at present. It will be pasturage worth letting by that time.”

“Then,” said my father, “after having paid yourself, these fifty acres, which were a month ago worth a rental of only fifty shillings, will bring in ten or twelve pounds a year, and have five hundred pounds' worth of larches upon them. Upon my word, this is a pretty profit!”

“Consider, too,” said Sir Henry, “that without costing me a farthing, more, the thinnings of the plantation will add to my income at a continually increasing rate. I shall be able to employ more and more labourers every year:-—not that I need tell you so; but I put in this observation for your daughter's sake. She looks quite disappointed in me—disappointed to find that I look for any profit from the measures which will benefit my family and society at large. Have I guessed your thoughts rightly, Miss Lucy!”

So rightly, that I blushed and my father laughed, while he assured Sir Henry that we none of us doubted his disinterestedness.

“What different ways there are of benefiting one's country and posterity, in different parts of the world!” 1 exclaimed. “In Canada, a landed proprietor would clear away as many trees as possible, I suppose, if he wished to do a patriotic thing.”

“It is one of the most interesting employments I know of,” said my father, “to trace how the same principles lead men to directly opposite or widely different modes of conduct, according to circumstances; and if men studied this fact a little more carefully than they do, the world would be incalculably happier than it seems likely to be for some time to come. If statesmen and legislators saw that usages and laws must be varied with lapse of time and change of circumstances, we should be freed from many useless institutions. If our men of power saw that what is beneficial to a country in one age may be hurtful in another, we should have a better economy and a wiser distribution of our wealth. If our people discerned the same thing, they would leave off complaining of new measures because they are not old, and railing against their best friends because the advice they offer would not have suited the condition of our grandfathers.”

Sir Henry observed that he had heard far more said about what would have been thought of Mr. Malton's large farm a century ago, than what ought to be thought of it now. In the same manner, the wise men who study how the resources of the nation may be best managed and improved are called hard-hearted, because the measures they recommend are different from such as were necessary when our population was less numerous, when there was less competition in commerce, and a smaller demand for agricultural produce.

“There can be no surer mark of ignorance and prejudice,” observed my father. “The king of Persia is prejudiced when he laughs at a king of England for having only one wife; and every Englishman who thinks the king of Persia wicked for having twenty, is ignorant. He does not know that the religion of the monarch allows the custom. Any one of our labourers would be prejudiced if he blamed an Indian for waste for burning a whole pine-tree at once; and that Indian would show himself ignorant if he laughed at Sir Henry for spending so much time, and labour, and money, in planting trees, of which the Indians have more than they know what to do with.”

“Any one such instance,” observed Sir Henry, “is enough to silence for ever all objections to plans because they are new. I would desire no better instance of the variations introduced by time into the way of employing labour and capital than the one you have reminded me of, by your mention of Indian forests. There was a time when this island was as much overgrown with wood as any part of North America now is.”

“What a different place it must have been then!” said I.

“Diffrent indeed! Vast forests extending over whole districts; the climate as cold as now in the north of Russia; (for countries in our latitude become temperate only in proportion as they are cleared;) wolves abounding in every wilderness, and swamps spreading in all directions, to the great injury of the health of the savage inhabitants,—such was Great Britain once.”

“Have swamps any necessary connexion with woods?” I inquired.

“With untended forests, where no care is taken to prevent them, A tree is blown down across a rivulet, and forms a dam. The water, stopped in its course, diffuses itself over the neighbouring ground, and loosens the roots of other trees, and, by becoming stagnant, poisons their vegetation. These other trees fall, one by one, and form other dams; and thus the destruction proceeds, till what was once a forest becomes a bog.”

“This is the reason, then, why trees are found buried in swamps?”

“Certainly; and we know it not only from the fact of trees being so found, but from there being actual instances of such transformations of a forest into a swamp at the present time, in Invernesshire, and some other parts of Scotland. Now, what would a wise landed proprietor do in such a state of the country as this?”

“The very reverse of what you are now doing,” said my father. “He would clear as much ground as possible for cultivation, putting the wood out of the way as fast as it was cut. He would build with it, burn it, and encourage every body about him to use it for all the purposes of life to which it could be applied. He would encourage pasturage, because cattle are scarce in proportion to the scarcity of open ground. These cattle, continually increasing under the care of man, would wander into the woods, and, though they could not injure large timber trees, would prevent the young plants from coming up, and thus prepare for the decline of the forests.”

“If things proceeded in their natural course, the face of the country would be wholly changed in a few centuries,—the hills being bleak and barren, and the vales swampy; the latter having become unfit for the residence of man, and the former an unsheltered and perilous pasture for his flocks. What would a wise landed proprietor do now?”

“He would hang woods on the summits of the hills to protect the herds grazing on their slopes,” replied my father. “He would cut trenches in the valley, and, as an effectual drain, would plant the hollows the first moment that their soil would bear the process. Under this management, the high grounds would become fertile, and the bogs would be converted into firm rich vegetable soil, ready to repay the labours of the plough.”

“Then if you owned the downs of our southern counties,” said I, “or the bogs of Ireland, you would plant and drain and plant again?”

“I should, and as much for my own profit as for the general good; for the price of timber rises, of course, in proportion to its scarcity. Now you see how different is the application of labour and capital in these two states of a country. In the one, labour is applied to banish, in the other to create, woods. In the one, cattle are permitted to destroy the young timber; while in the other every tender shoot is protected at an expense of trouble and money. In the one, growing wood is as little valuable a part of the proprietor's capital as the stones which encumber Mr. Malton's new fields, and of which he can only make the meanest of his fences; while in the other, it is the resource on which the proprietor mainly relies for the stability of his fortune, not only for the income it brings, but for its power of increasing the productiveness of his pasture and corn lands.”

“And do you believe,” said I, “that there are any so stupid as to oppose a different application of labour and capital in these two cases?”

“Not in so clear an instance,” replied my father; “but they will not follow the precedent in cases very like it. Can you fancy a family of natives, living, some centuries ago, in a wattled hut in a wilderness of Cumberland, visited every winter's night by wolves, every spring season with agues, crying out in dismay at the proceedings of a rich neighbour to clear the ground? They would exclaim against having their old customs broken in upon, and would talk of the pleasure of gathering acorns for supper in the glades at sunset, and of their hunts, and of the freedom of their wild life. If their neighbour represented to them that acorns had long been becoming scarce from the disappearance of oaks in the swamps; that their children had been swept from their side by diseases belonging to the locality; and that wild beasts were increasing so fast, that there seemed a probability of the hunters soon becoming the hunted, these new notions would only increase their discontent. If he offered to supply them with certain quantities of grain and meat in exchange for wolves' heads, they would complain of the degradation of obtaining their food by rendering service instead of the dignified independence picking up acorns or digging

roots out of the soil. They would complain that he had injured them by fencing in ground where the boar used to stand at bay; and if he attempted to shew them the impossibility of restoring the forest and the climate and mode of life to what they were a hundred years before, and the necessity of making some provision for their altered state, they would, instead of listening, tax him with all the distresses and inconveniences which had been prepared before he was born.— Now, Lucy, can you find a parallel case to this?”

“Very easily,” replied I, “Mr. Malton is the rich neighbour, and old Williams was one of the lovers of the old paths; and if you had told us of one who retired back farther into the swamp and built his hut on the sinking trunks of the fallen trees, I should have thought you were prophesying of Norton.”

“Let us bode him no ill,” said my father, “but rather hope that he will plant his foot on firm ground, whatever we may think of the position he has chosen.”

“I can scarcely imagine,” said I, “that any would be found to object to the second process Sir Henry described. The shepherd, striving in vain to win his way against the snow storm on the uplands, in search of his perishing flock, would surely bless the hand that planted woods to shelter his charge?”

“Even he,” said my father, “would pluck up every sapling if he dared, for shepherds are well known to grudge every foot of soil on which their flock cannot browze.”

“Observe the fact,” said Sir Henry. “Are not my pheasants lampooned before they are hatched? is not every larch in all these acres looked upon as a meal taken from a half-starved cow? When the shepherd finds his flock safe under the shelter of a full-grown wood, he will be reconciled to the planter; and not till then: and if any one of my neighbours should live to rest his aged form on his staff in the noonday sun, and watch his grandchildren, among a hundred labourers, felling wood on this spot, he may look on my grave as he creeps homewards, and sigh to think how he once misunderstood my intentions; but I must not expect this justice in my lifetime.”

“You may,” replied my father; “and if you are spared to a good old age, you will witness as total a change in the views of our discontented neighbours as in the aspect of this waste or the condition of our village.”

Sir Henry pointed to the temporary dwellings which had been erected for the troop of labourers who had come from a distance to work under his forester, (there not being an adequate supply of labour at Brooke for the new demand,) and said,—

“When that row of sheds shall have grown into a village, and when the axe and mattock shall be heard in the woods throughout the winter's day; when the timber-wain shall come jingling down the slope, and the sawyers and woodmen be seen going aud returning early and late, my purposes will be answered, whether I live to see their fulfilment or not.”