CAPTAIN Basil Hail, many years ago, while on a visit to Abbotsford, wrote: "People accustomed to the planting of trees are well aware how grateful the rising generations of the forest are to the hand which thins and prunes them. And it makes one often melancholy to see what a destructive waste and retardation goes on by the neglect of young wood; how much beauty is lost; how much wealth is wantonly thrown away, and what an air of slovenliness is given to scenery which, with a very little trouble, might have adorned and embellished, not to say enriched, many a great estate.

" I never saw this mischievous effect of indolence more conspicuously made manifest than in a part of the grounds here. Sir Walter's property on one side is bounded by a belt of trees, say twenty yards across. The marsh runs directly along the center of this belt, so that one-half of the trees belong to his neighbor, the other to him. The moment he came in possession, he set about thinning and pruning the trees, and planting a number of hardwood shoots under the shelter of the firs. In a very short time the effect was evident. The trees, heretofore choked up, had run into scraggy stems, and were sadly stunted in growth; but having now room to breathe and take exercise, they have shot up, in the course of a few years, in a wonderful manner, and have set out branches on all sides, while their trunks have gradually lost the walking stick, or hop pole, aspect which they were forced to assume before; and the beeches and oaks and other recent trees are standing up vigorously under the genial influence of the owner's care.

"Meanwhile the obstinate, indolent or ignorant possessor of the other half of the belt has done nothing to his woods for many years, and the growth is apparently at a stand in its original ugliness and uselessness. The trees are none of them above half the height of Sir Walter's, and a few, if any, half their diameter.

"So very remarkable is the difference, that without the most positive assurances, I could not believe it possible that it could have been brought about by mere care in . so short a period as five years.

"The trees on the one side are quite without value, either to make fences or to sell as supports to the coal pits near Berwick, while Sir Walter's reap a great profit from the mere thinning out of his plantations. To obtain such results it will be easily understood that much personal attention is necessary, much method, and knowledge of the subject. It happens, however, that in this very attention he. finds his chief pleasure. He is a most exact and punctual man of business, and has made it his favorite study to acquire a thorough knowledge of the art.

"His excellent taste in planting has produced a very important effect. In laying out his plantations he was guided partly by a feeling that it was natural and beautiful, to follow the ' lie of the ground,' as it is called, and partly by an idea that, by leading his young wood along pastures and gentle slopes, he would be taking the surest course to give it shelter. But though he had only the prosperity and pictur-esqueness of the wood in view, he has also, he finds, added to the value of the adjoining fields that remain unplanted. The person who formerly rented one farm, came to him, and offered to take the unplanted, part again, and to pay the same rent for it as he had originally paid for the whole, although one-half of it is now a young forest, and effectually enclosed. On Sir Walter's expressing his surprise at this, the man said that both for growing corn and for the pasture of the sheep, the land was infinitely improved in value by the protection which his rising woods and numerous enclosures afforded."