"Previous to the division of the common moor of Methven in Perthshire, in 1793, the venerable Lord Lynedoch and Lord Methven had each secured their lower slopes of land adjoining the moor with belts of plantation. The year following I entered Lord Methven's service, and in 1798 planted about sixty acres of the higher moor ground, valued at 2s. per acre, for shelter to eighty or ninety acres set apart for cultivation, and let in three divisions to six individuals. The progress made in improving the land was very slow for the first fifteen years, but thereafter went on rapidly, being aided by the _shelter derived from_ the growth of the plantations; and the whole has now become fair land, bearing annually crops of oats, barley, peas, potatoes, and turnips. In spring 1838, exactly forty years from the time of putting down the plantation, I sold four acres of larch and fir (average growth) standing therein, for L.220, which, with the value of reserved trees and average amount per acre of thinnings sold previously, gave a return of L.67 per acre."--Vol. i, p. 367. We are satisfied that in localities with which we are ourselves acquainted, there are tens of thousand of acres which, by the simple protection of sheltering plantations, would soon be made to exhibit an equal improvement with either the moor of Methven, or the lands upon Shotley Fell, which are also referred to in the work before us. At a time when such strenuous endeavours are making to introduce and extend a more efficient drainage among our clay lands, the more simple amelioration of our cold uplands by judicious plantations, ought neither to be lost sight of, nor by those who address themselves to the landlords and cultivators, be passed by without especial and frequent notice. Did space permit, we could have wished to extract a paragraph or two upon the mode of planting hedges, and forming ditches, for the purpose of proving to our readers that Mr. Stephens is as complete a _hedger_ and _ditcher_, as we have seen him to be cunning as a drover and a cattle surgeon. But we must refer the reader to the passages in pp. 376 and 379. Even in the planting of thorn hedges he will find that science is not unavailing, for both mathematics and botany are made by Mr. Stephens to yield their several contributions to the chapters we are now considering.