NOTE VIII. Page 308.

It is a thing well known to any person who has attended to the subject, that, extensive as the business of arboriculture in Scotland is, nothing can be more injudicious than the way in which it is managed. A principle is adopted, completely at variance with the professed object in view; and that principle is carried through with such ill-judged persistency, as almost wholly to defeat the object.

A space of ground is selected, the richest that can be found near a great city-usually garden ground, that has been in cultivation for ages. A profusion of rich manure is immediately poured into it, to a potato or turnip crop, after which acorns and other tree seeds are thinly sown in beds, and seedlings of every sort rush up as close as they can stand together. After a twelvemonth or two, as the case may be, these seedlings are transplanted into rows as densely compacted; and he who knows the judicious distances, whether between the rows or the plants, prescribed by the Millers, the Boutchers, or the Hanburys, as essentially necessary to their success, will stand aghast at the contrast here exhibited. At the end of two years more of a severe struggle of the weak with the strong, in a soil and climate equally hostile to both, the whole are planted out, in the most sterile tracts and the highest elevations. And what is the nurseryman's object, by so strange and unnatural a process? Why, to raise, as he is expected to do, the greatest possible number of plants on the smallest extent of surface, and to furnish them to his customers at the lowest possible price.

In respect to the style of plants so injudiciously drawn up, their fibrousness of root, their strength of stem, their number of side-branches, the utter deficiency in these, and other properties which they should possess, will appear at a single glance to the intelligent reader. But to the nurseryman, these things are of no consequence whatever. He knows very well that his employers, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, can form no judgment on such points. Noblemen and gentlemen may know something of breeding or of feeding stock; but a knowledge of wood is not the fashion of the day. They must, in that department, see through the eyes and hear through the ears of their gardeners; and almost every gardener in the kingdom owes his situation, directly or indirectly, to the nurseryman. Without therefore supposing a degree of virtue that is superhuman in this class of men, we can conceive no great improvement of the system to originate with them; and we may easily imagine how the extensive plantations, now in progress for years, are and have been supplied with plants. As to the scale of magnitude on which this branch of trade is conducted in Edinburgh, it

may be curious to add, that one company alone in that city, besides supplying a great part of Scotland with seeds and nursery plants, exports yearly some millions of the latter, for the use of the west and south-west of England, as well as Wales.*

The necessary result of such a state of things requires little description and no comment. From the unwholesome atmosphere of a pernicious hot-bed, these tender plants, when suddenly transferred to commons and mountains, sicken and decay. Without any portion of the vigour inherent in their species, they have all the delicacy and weakness derived from a forced and adventitious mode of culture. If they survive the change, they languish for years, ere they acquire strength or constitution suited to their new situation. Thus, the progress of wood, which is slow to a proverb, is rendered slower still, and more uncertain, by such severe and unnatural treatment. If we add to this, the imperfect acquaintance possessed in general by planters themselves with the nature and properties of the grand staple of all woods, the Oak, and the proper adaptation of its different species to different situations and climates, we have a true, but not a very flattering picture of the value of our plantations to posterity.

In making this statement, which a regard for truth compels me to make, I need scarcely repeat what has been already stated, that no reflection can possibly be intended by it on the nurserymen of Scotland, either aggregately or individually. It is true they are unhappily situated, under the influence of circumstances which they cannot easily control, and of habits which they have no direct temptation to relinquish. Yet respectable and enterprising as they unquestionably are in their present vocation, it strikes me with wonder, that while some portion of the most eminent of them see and lament the extensive evils, of which I have given but a faint outline, not a man has been found of sufficient energy and vigour of character to attempt to place the trade upon a better footing.

When we consider that the nurseryman may in some sort be said to cater for the planter, and that the planter plants, not for himself only,

* It appears that our English neighbours, as a sort of reciprocation of courtesy, prefer sundry articles of our manufacture, intellectual and artificial, to their own. Of the former sort, novels, for example, and delineations of life and manners, and muslins, and nursery plants, are supposed to be produced no where so well as in Scotland; from which the annual export, in all the branches, is to an enormous extent, and large fortunes in consequence have been made in them. One gentleman, in the nursery department, is said to have realised above £80,000, which is pretty well for Edinburgh; and others, no doubt, have succeeded in proportion.

but for posterity, it follows that the office, and the way in which its duties are discharged, must be extremely interesting to the community. Instead of being a mere dealer in seeds and plants, a nurseryman in this country should be a man of science, endued with liberal views and pretty general acquirements. He should be a botanist, a gardener, a planter, an agriculturist, and a person, withal, who has had the benefit of a liberal, if not an academical education. He should above all, if possible, be an honest man. To raise cheap plants is one thing, to raise the best and healthiest plants is a thing very different; and I am persuaded, were another Boutcher now to arise in Scotland, that instead of being allowed to languish unknown, at Comely Garden or elsewhere, and die at last in neglect and indigence, he would rapidly make a fortune. Such is the present wealth and intelligence of the country, that if he only trod in the footsteps of his honest and unpretending predecessor, and regarded all considerations as nothing in comparison with the furnishing of superior articles, he would soon attract into his hands half the business of the kingdom. To such a nurseryman as this, a better price indeed would be paid; but it would be the best-spent money that men of land-property could lay out. The rapid progress, nay the obvious health and vigour of woods planted in consequence, would increase in a three or four-fold ratio; a ratio quite inconceivable to any one who has not verified the fact. Yet it is a fact which we may easily verify, by taking the trouble to inspect, and compare with others, the plantations of any nobleman or gentleman who is judicious and knowing enough to raise his own nursery-plants; but his scale of operations, to admit of an efficient arrangement of this sort, must be pretty considerable.

What, then, will effect the reform in our arboricultural system which we so much desiderate? Probably public opinion alone; and nothing less, as far as I can see, than the same influence to which I have more than once appealed, that of the great Agricultural Society of Scotland, is capable of bringing that powerful engine to bear upon the object. Of treatises on woods and plantations there is not any want at present. But were the Society to hold out premiums to nurserymen, for raising the hardiest and best plants of various kinds and ages, such as showed the healthiest character in respect to roots, fibres, stem, bark, and other properties, the eyes of planters would at once be opened to the vast importance of having such materials to work with; and in fact, within a short time, none but such plants would be valued, or would sell in the market.

Of late years we have seen, with unmixed satisfaction, men of the highest rank, wealth, and talents, successfully apply themselves to

agriculture. The breeding and feeding of stock, as intimately connected with it, have also practically engaged their attention, and called forth their assiduity. Who knows, but that TREES might next become as favourite an object with the higher orders, were the tide of fashion to set in that way? Persons of wealth and property, if they really studied the subject, would then find that, in judging of their woods, the medium of their gardeners was no longer wanted; and instead of borrowing from that class of men antiquated prejudices and popular errors, they would be enabled to give instructions to them, practical and scientific, obtained from sources which are beyond their reach. With such instructors, and under such patrons, the art of planting would speedily improve, and skill would in time derive lessons from experience. The age of the Millers and the Boutchers would ere long return, and, with it, knowledge presiding over arboricultural labour. The profession of the nurseryman, in such a case, could not fail to rise from the level of an ordinary trade to the rank of a liberal study. Men of intelligence and information would soon engage in it, as a field not unworthy of their talents, where fame, as well as wealth, would be sure to remunerate useful exertion.

I observed in the text, that this subject might deserve a separate essay; and here is, in fact, a sort of disquisition not necessarily connected with the transplanting art. I do not know, important as it is, whether it will do any good; but I will give it its chance with a discerning public.

SECTION XIII.

NOTE I. Page 310.

THE Ash, according to the arrangement of Linnæus, is ranked under the genus Polygamia dioecia. The common Ash, or Fraxinus excelsior, has small-sized leaves, which are serrated, with flowers having no petals (Foliolis serratis, floribus apetalis.)-Linn. Spec. Plant. 1509. Fraxinus excelsior, foliolis serratis, floribus calyce corrolâque destitutis.-Smith, Flor. Brit. t. ii. p. 13. Of the American species of this tree, there is one which seems particularly hardy and valuable, I mean the Fraxinus americana, or White Ash, as described by Willdenow and Michaux. It endures the severest colds of Canada and Nova Scotia, and unites all the properties for which the Common Ash is so remarkable-strength, toughness, and durability. That it would transplant well, I have little doubt; but I cannot speak from my own experience.

I entirely agree with the ingenious Dr Yule, in the opinion that the Ash family is, as yet, but imperfectly known to naturalists; and that the seemingly valuable properties of the white, the red, and the blue American species well deserve to be investigated. See his interesting Report of a Committee of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, of experiments on the naturalisation of useful and ornamental plants in Scotland, (as already alluded to, pp. 462-3, under the head Oak.) Horticul. Misc. vol. ii. pp. 395–397.

NOTE II. Page 313.

The heritable or territorial jurisdictions which subsisted in Scotland from remote times, and were not entirely abolished till after the rebellion in 1745, conferred very extensive powers on the lesser as well as the greater barons. In some cases, they extended to life and death, and in others to minor punishments, such as that of "the Juggs" alluded to in the text.

This term is obviously derived from the Latin jugum, and is therefore of Saxon, not Celtic origin. It seems surprising that Dr Jamie