1886.] THE LIBEUTON MAIXS NURSERY. 55^ 



large field of healthy stock, hut so carefully had plants for true 

 seed beeu selected that not one -tenth remained at the time of our 

 visit. Further, the firm find here scope and verge enough for the 

 system so long practised in their Pilrig and other Edinburgh 

 nurseries, of planting new breaks of forest trees and other seedlings 

 on land which has been first under some cereal or other green crop, 

 and never previously under trees. Liberton Mains is at least three 

 hundred feet higher in altitude than the nurseries in the Leith 

 Walk district of Edinburgh, and its temperature is at least o degrees 

 to 4 decrees more extreme. But Arthur Seat and the other monu- 

 ments of the Cyclopean earth-throes, which originated the hills on 

 which Edinburgh is built, and scarped the romantic landscape which 

 roused Scott's poetic fire, act as protecting walls against those east 

 and north winds, the bane both of delicate plants and invalids in 

 Edinburgh. The site has thus been found specially suitable for 

 rearing roses whose stocks could only previously be obtained from 

 l^^ngland and Ireland. The apples raised on it were exhibited at the 

 late Edinburgh Congress, and indicated an amount of sunshine 

 which compared favourably with the fruit grown in the south of 

 England and Ireland. In time the arboriculturist may rely on 

 plant growth prognostications just in the way the sanitarian consults 

 the vital statistics of our great cities. Such records, in their con- 

 nection with weather changes, have been diligently studied at more 

 than one centre on the northern slopes of Edinburgh ; hwt scientists 

 appear only to agree on the unreliability of the yet imperfect 

 observations in forecasting plant growth. It may suffice, meanwhile, 

 to note that while the Glory pea (Clianthus puniceus) sickens around 

 lionnington, it luxuriates at Liberton. The clear air of the latter 

 locality carries no stratum of city smoke, which is all too evident 

 in scanning the northern horizon of Edinburgh. Its high exposed 

 situation and sharp sandy soil satisfy the conditions postulated 

 some years ago to the Botanical Society by the late William Gorrie 

 as necessities for the healthy growth of forest conifers. So this 

 nursery presents the two unique features of a training place for 

 orchard trees, or fruit-bearing hedgerows, as well as future tree 

 covers of highland mountains. 



The fruit tree and forest tree departments of the nursery con- 

 stitute its two divisions, apparently affording attractions to distinct 

 classes of purchasers. But a thorough inspection of both demon- 

 strates closer bonds. Thus the perfecting of a market garden system 

 of agriculture must always interest foresters who are usually estate 

 improvers. Then, seed growing true to stock, must always be a 

 burning question in such a connection. And what more pressing 

 question than improved hedgerows, at once affording shelter, profit. 



