INTRODUCTION. 11 
proprietor of a landed estate is either a planter, or possesses 
trees already planted. If he is in the former case, he will learn 
from this Work to combine beauty with utility, by planting, in 
the outer margins of his natural woods or artificial plantations, 
and along the open rides in them, and in the hedgerows of his 
Janes and public roads, trees which are at once highly ornamental 
and more or less useful — in some cases, perhaps, even more 
useful — than the common indigenous trees for which they are 
substituted. If, on the other hand, his estate is already fully 
planted, he will learn from this Work how he may beautify his 
plantations by a mode which never yet has been applied in a 
general way to forest trees; viz., by heading down large trees 
of the common species, and grafting on them foreign species of 
the same genus. ‘This is a common practice in orchards of fruit 
trees; and why it should not be so in parks and pleasure-grounds, 
along the margins of woods, and in the trees of hedgerows, no 
other reason can be assigned than that it has not hitherto been 
generally thought of. Hawthorn hedges are common every- 
where; and there are between twenty and thirty beautiful species 
and varieties of thorn in our nurseries, which might be grafted 
on them. Why should not proprietors of wealth and taste desire 
their gardeners to graft some of the rare and beautiful sorts of 
tree thorns on the common hawthorn bushes, at intervals, so as 
to form standard trees, in such of their hedges as border public 
roads? And why should not the scarlet oak and the scarlet 
acer be grafted on the common species of these genera, along 
the margins of woods and plantations? Such improvements the 
more strongly recommend themselves, because, to many, they 
would involve no extra expense; and, in every case, the effect 
would be almost immediate. Every gardener can graft and bud; 
and every landed proprietor can procure stock plants from nur- 
series, from which he can take the grafts; or he may get scions 
from botanic gardens, the garden of the London Horticultural 
Society, that of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, or the 
Dublin Garden at Glasnevin. 
Amateur landscape-gardeners, and architects who lay out the 
grounds of the houses they have designed, will be enabled, by 
this Work, to choose the kinds of trees which they think will 
produce the best effect in their plantations ; and, what is of much 
more consequence, which will produce a certain effect within a 
given number of years. Indeed, the want of such a Work as the 
Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum to professional landscape- 
gardeners, and a conviction of the great use it would be of to 
practical gardeners, and to all persons engaged in laying out 
grounds, or in forming ornamental plantations, first suggested 
to us the idea of commencing the Work. 
In modern landscape-gardening, considered as a fine art, all 
the more important beauties and effects produced by the artist 
