r 
120 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
in Forestry, because the future success of a plantation depends 
largely upon it. A low price for the plants should never induce 
anyone to plant weak, sickly, or insect-infested trees or shrubs of 
any description. 
PLANT-COLLECTORS. 
The search for hardy trees and shrubs in foreign countries, and 
their introduction to Britain, received a great impetus from the 
success which Douglas attained in introducing so many stately 
conifers, and other valuable plants, from North America, in the 
decade immediately preceding the Queen’s reign. In fact, although 
Douglas gathered his spoils in California, Oregon, and British 
Columbia, and introduced them to Britain through the Royal 
Horticultural Society, before Her Majesty ascended the throne, 
their dissemination throughout the country, and their rise into 
popular favour and demand, may be said truly to belong to the 
Victorian era. 
Stimulated by the history and success of those notable intro- 
ductions of Douglas and other earlier travellers, plant-collectors, 
as they were called, were sent abroad, or went on their own 
account, to ransack every accessible spot in temperate regions, 
to discover plants that might be worthy of introduction to this 
country. To name even a tithe of the useful and interesting 
plants introduced to Britain by the plant-collectors in the sixty 
years of Her Majesty’s reign, would far exceed any reasonable 
limits of a paper of this kind, and mention will only be made of a 
few of the leading collectors and the most notable of the trees which 
they introduced, taking them generally in chronological order. 
In the year 1837 Dr Royle sent home from India the hand- 
some Indian Silver Fir, Abies Pindrow, which is, however, only 
hardy in a few of the mildest spots in Britain, In that and 
a few following years he introduced to Britain a few other Indian 
or Himalayan trees, but none of them are of any value to the 
forester. In 1838 Mr A. B. Lambert introduced the Monterey 
Cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa, from Monterey, California, a 
beautiful ornamental tree of rapid growth in mild localities, 
and one of the best of the Coniferze for maritime planting, as it 
resists the effects of salt spray better than most other trees. In 
1839 the beautiful Eastern Spruce, Picea orientalis, was intro- 
duced from Asia Minor; and that fine ornamental tree, the 
Spanish Silver Fir, Abies Pinsapo, which thrives so well on chalky 
