The Planter's Guide; Or, a Practical Essay on the Best Method of Giving Immediate Effect to Wood, by the Removal of Large Trees and Underwood Being an (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PLANTER'S GUIDE. SECTION I. IMPORTANCE OF ARBORICULTURE, AND OF ESTABLISHING IT ON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES. ART OF GIVING IMMEDIATE EFFECT TO WOOD. There is perhaps no epithet, by which the inhabitants of the Northern Division of this Island, in the present day, can be more appropriately distinguished, than that of a "Planting Nation," or, to speak with more correctness, a " Nation of Planters." All men now plant, who are possessed of land- property, from the wealthy citizen with his villa of an acre, to the powerful baron with his park of a thousand acres; each according to the extent of his surface, and the measure of his ability. The vast sums which are annually laid out on this useful and ornamental object, would exceed belief, if fairly estimated, considering the limited wealth of the country, compared with that of England. Yet of trees the Scottish land-owner for the most part knows little, although he may possibly know as much as his English neighbours: but, like them, he lays out his money freely on the work, however executed, conceiving, and with justice, that he has done a great thing, if not for himself, at least for his posterity. Unacquainted with the history, properties, and culture of trees, he naturallyenough sees with the eyes, and hears with the ears of his gardener; and, as the gardener, ninety-nine times in a hundred, knows nothing himself, it is " the blind leading the blind," in this important branch of rural economy. Sometimes the forester is the operating person, which is still more unfortunate; for this is generally a mere lopper and cutter of wood. In ordinary cases, he is much worse educated than the gardener, with equal pretensions as to arboriculture, and equal ignorance. On the gardeners of Scotland it is not here intended to thro...