While professionally employed, and while passing from one part of the country to another, my surprise has often been great, when I have witnessed, from its effects, the indifference which many gentlemen manifest, as to the state and management of this description of property: there appears, in comparatively few instances, to be any thing worth the name of an effort to rescue them from that state of wild unproductiveness in which they have been for ages! One generation passes away after another, and like as was the father, so is the son—and as was the agent of the former, so is the agent of the latter! All they have done for ages gone by, they do now, and little or nothing more. They calculate, with tolerable accuracy, the return of the year, when, according to immemorial custom, they ought to “cut, and hack, and hew,” and they go into the wood for the purpose of _setting out_ the piece which they intend to fell: this they divide, in many districts, into a certain number of lots, or ranges, of what they call “Gad Wood,” which vary considerably in size, but which, as far as they go, include _all_ the Underwood. At the same time, the sapient woodman contrives to satisfy himself—and it is seldom that his superiors make any inquiry into the matter—as to the number of _Oak Trees_, &c. that it is proper to take down; and then, after due notice given, the whole is sold, Underwood and all, by Auction. It is a common practice to describe a _ring_ round a portion of the Standard Trees which are to remain—such as the Oak, Ash, &c.—and these, of course, are intended for future timber, the selection being often as bad as it well can be, but the whole system, from the beginning to the end, is most objectionable, and it is matter of astonishment that it should have continued so long. It is objectionable for many reasons, among which I mention the following: viz.: because the Proprietor throws out of his own hands that _control_ which a gentleman ought to have over every person who enters his woods, whether as a purchaser or as a workman. This control is absolutely necessary in order to secure two things, for which Conditions of Sale, however well they may be drawn up, offer but a very feeble security—I mean _the prevention of entry by teams, &c. at an improper season, and the clearing of the Woods at a given time_. There are other reasons which apply more or less strongly, according to the condition of the wood, _as to its stock, and the staple of its soil_. Carting, or rather _teaming_, for carts are not often used, will inevitably do much injury in woods that are _well stocked, if the utmost possible care is not taken, whatever the soil may be_; but if it be a _tenacious, retentive, cold, clay_, damage would be done in two ways: viz.: in the poaching of the land, and in that which would be done to the _stock_ by the _wheels_. The injury to which woods are liable from these two causes, and others, may