In the portion of the earth from the Atlantic eastward, through Numidia, Libya, Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, Persia, as far as the Indus, from the enormous ruins, and other vestiges of dense population, as well as from ancient records, there must have {327} existed a considerable depth of vegetable mould covering, where now little is left but pure sand, baked clay, bare rock, and saline encrustations. From the footing which an industrious and brave nation has recently so honourably acquired in this territory, may we not hope that the tide of arid sterility, dissipating the vegetable covering, will be turned, and that through European enterprise and mechanical science, by means of steam and wind power, a system of irrigation will be introduced which will reanimate this dead portion of the earth—spreading forth again perpetual spring, strewing the desert all over with herbs, and fruits, and flowers, converting the sirocco into a breeze loaded with fragrance, and reproducing, in profusion, all the delights of the gardens of Hesperus? From the carbonaceous or soil-matter being burned out, and from the quantity of saline deposit, a very considerable time will, however, elapse before production be generally extended, and the desert so far circumscribed, and the ground cooled so much, as to condense a sufficiency of rain and dew, that a new vegetable mould cover may be formed. But to return from our wide exclusion, we observe, that Mr Cruickshank states, page 25, “that any land that is proper for Scots fir will be found to answer well with the larch.” This observation, with {328} what he says of larch “being heavier in proportion to its bulk” than Scots fir, and that “spruce is very easily wrought, and tries the carpenter’s tools less than any other kind of wood used in building,” would lead us to suspect that our author has had a very limited acquaintance with his subject. A number of different soils will produce large Scots fir where larches will be generally rotted and hollow in the heart, by twenty years of age[64]. This ignorance of our author is the more glaring, as it is coupled with {329} some severe strictures on planters in general for _their ignorance_ of the proper location of trees. He says, “Scots fir, on soils of a fertile character, is short lived, and the excellence of its timber is in proportion to the slowness of its growth.” This is erroneous. We would rather say it is short-lived in bad soil: Memel fir (Pinus sylvestris), is of very superior quality, very large growthed, and of great age. He also asserts “elm prefers a strong clay soil, and it is perhaps impossible to bring this tree to the utmost size it is capable of attaining in land of a different quality.” This is also erroneous. We have seen very beautiful large Scots elms grubbed out from a soil of pure gravel, and we can show thousands of instances where Scots elms do not thrive well in clay—in rich as well as poor clay. We are aware that in every volume