The following article about the potential for planting trees in non-arable land in Ireland appeared in the wonderfully named The Irish Farmer’s and Gardener’s Register and Journal of Rural Affairs in 1842 [Volume I, (pp 199 – 205)]. The Journal is available at the National Library of Ireland.
The article uses Powerscourt as a case-study, and says that trees were:
…planted under out supervision about twelve years since; and although furze, which previously to planting trees had to be uprooted, made powerful efforts to regain possession of the land; it was at length overcome, and at present the surface is covered with luxuriant grasses, ready, whenever the trees have attained sufficient size, to be beyond the reach of injury from cattle, of affording valuable pasturage…
The effect also led to improved scenery:
…The truth of this observation was forcibly impressed on us a few days since, when contrasting the change which the planting of about thirty acres of land had in a few years, produced on the scenery of a formerly uninteresting drive from Bray to the Dargle gate. The site of this plantation, the precipitous banks of the Dargle river, was lately little better than a quagmire, affording only coarse pasturage in summer…
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