And laziness that has omitted for so
long a time so easy an improvement.
To drop seeds into the ground, and attend their growth, requires
little labour and no skill. He who remembers that all the woods,
by which the wants of man have been supplied from the Deluge till
now, were self-sown, will not easily be persuaded to think all the
art and preparation necessary, which the Georgick writers prescribe
to planters. Trees certainly have covered the earth with very
little culture. They wave their tops among the rocks of Norway,
and might thrive as well in the Highlands and Hebrides.
But there is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. He
that calculates the growth of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance
of the shortness of life driven hard upon him. He knows that he is
doing what will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to see
the stem rise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it
down.
Plantation is naturally the employment of a mind unburdened with
care, and vacant to futurity, saturated with present good, and at
leisure to derive gratification from the prospect of posterity. He
that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed.
The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.
