PREFACE. 
Tue main object which induced the author to undertake this Work was, the 
hope of diffusing more generally, among gentlemen of landed property, a taste 
for introducing a greater variety of trees and shrubs in their plantations and 
pleasure-grounds. He had observed, for a number of years, that, though many 
new and beautiful trees and shrubs were annually introduced from foreign 
countries into our botanic gardens and nurseries, yet the spread of these 
plants in the grounds of country residences was comparatively slow ; and that 
not only the new sorts were neglected, but many of the fine old species and 
varieties, which had been in British nurseries for upwards of a century, were 
forgotten by planters, and had ceased to be propagated by commercial gardeners. 
In short, it appeared to the author, that the general taste of the country for 
trees and shrubs bore no just proportion to the taste which prevailed in it 
for fruits, culinary productions, and flowers. It also appeared to him, that, 
while the numerous horticultural societies now established in the British 
Islands had powerfully promoted the general taste for horticultural and flori- 
cultural productions, they had rather neglected arboriculture and landscape- 
gardening. 
Viewing trees and shrubs as, next tobuildings, the most important ornaments 
which can be introduced into a country ; and considering them, in this respect, 
greatly superior to herbaceous plants, from the little carethat trees and shrubs 
require when once properly planted, and their magnitude, and permanent in- 
fluence when grown up, on the general scenery of the country ; the author felt 
desirous of pointing out the great importance of their more general distribution 
and culture. In order to impress this on the minds of proprietors and their 
families, and especially on the rising generation among them, he thought it 
_ best to adopt, as the main feature of his plan, the description and portraiture 
of such species and varieties of trees and shrubs as are actually in cultivation 
in the country, and as grow vigorously in it; referring to gardens or grounds 
within a limited distance of London, where these species or varieties may be 
seen in a living state, and to nurseries where they are propagated for sale, and 
stating the price for which they might be purchased in England, in France and 
Germany, and in North America. He has thought it advisable to give, not only 
botanical specimens, but portraits of the greater number of species of trees ; in 
order, by a palpable representation of their forms and magnitudes, to make a 
stronger impression on the mind of the reader. These pictorial illustrations are 
of two kinds : first, portraits of trees of ten or twelve years’ growth, taken from 
specimens growing in 1834, 1835, or 1836, within ten miles of London, and all 
drawn to the same scale of 1 in. to 4 ft. ; and, secondly, of full-grown trees, also 
all drawn to one scale, viz. 1 in. to 12 ft., and for the most part growing within 
the same distance of London. 
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