Chiefs of Grant > Correspondence

444 ADDITIONAL GRANT CORRESPONDENCE.
An estate so established will justly be estimated what it will be twenty or forty years
after. Interum prudent reconomy, to live within compass of present rents being all that is
necessary to encrease it considerably.
If an estate hath much waste land, incloseing and planting will be the cheapest and most
certain improvement for part of it. Suppose 4000 acres are so employed, besides large
gains by pasture, especially for breeding horses and mules, the result from the wood alone
may be in perpetuity after eighty years, from the first planting or growth of part of it
above £5000 sterling per annum, in any situation where tollerable access to sea, by land or
water — and all objections to this can be easily answered — the expence of incloseing, planting,
or sawing natural! wood, being small and graduall — and to render as above. Large allowances
are made for all charges, and very moderate prices fixed upon the timber, either plants or
logg, so as to allow large profits for undertakers.
To encourage tennants to this, it might be proper to allow them to sell, or use, at least
one-half of what they plant; and proprietor to have large nursries, including thorns and
other hedgeing, to furnish plants gratis, or at small price.
As to future studies and conduct, and sundry other essentiall articles, concerning
which my affectionate solicitude for your prosperity and happyness may extort the offer of
some hints to your consideration, they shall be reserved for some proper opportunity.
523. James, sixth Earl of Findlater and third of Seafield, to Mr. Grant of Grant
— The king's illness. Hamilton's picture of Achilles painted at Eome.
London, 18th March 1765.
Dear Sir, — I have just now the pleasure of your obliging letter of the 9th. Lord Deskfoord
is at present confined to his room by a cold, and I have had a bad one, which is hardly
cured. Had it not been for that, I should certainly have endeavoured to meet with your
friend Lockhart before now. My cotemporaries, Mr. Mackenzie and Worsley, ask often for
you. The truth is, I have seen very few people, except a few old acquaintances ; for being
out at night is not our stile, and the king's falling ill just when we came to London has
prevented us from being at St. James's and the other courts, which are the places of publick
resort in the day time, where one can see their old friends. I should be very glad to have
it in my power to be of the least use to Sir James Innes, and will, the first time that my
cold lets me go out in a morning, call for him, to see in what I can serve him. But I am
suspicious that my little acquaintance here may make my good will ineffectual.
I dined t'other day in the city at Sir Alexander Grant's, who has got the picture which
Hamilton painted at Rome by your direction. Talking to-day with Mr. James Adam, who
saw the picture at Rome, and says it is finely executed, it appeared to us that it would be
a sort of injustice to Hamilton to let the picture be rolled up in London in the time of the