LITERATURE OF SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURE. 211 



XXIV. — On the Literature of Scottish Arboriculture. 

 By Eobert Hutchison of Carlo wrie, F.R.S.E. 

 The utility of timber for the supply of an infinite number of 

 man's wants, and its adaptation to his varied domestic and con- 

 structive necessities, — applicable as it is to his earliest and to his 

 latest requirements, — to Ins cradle or to his coffin, — has rendered tbe 

 growth and culture cf trees in every age and in every country 

 throughout the civilized world a subject of primary importance. 

 Nor is the culture of timber trees a topic of an uninteresting nature, 

 apart from the consideration of their utility, for the advantages 

 afforded by their shade and ornament are recognised in almost every 

 country; and the avidity with which, everywhere, the flora of 

 distant regions is ransacked for new acquisitions suitable for a wider 

 geographical area of distribution than nature has allotted them, 

 proves that the love of trees, per se, is one of the deepest and earliest 

 impulses of human nature. If this, then, be the case, it must be 

 little matter of surprise that artificial skill and ingenuity, even in 

 rude untutored ages, were called forth to foster and promote, by 

 every conceivable device, the cultivation of the most useful varieties 

 of trees, whether for food, fuel, or mechanical employment, accord- 

 ing to the respective wants of the grower. Arboriculture may thus 

 be looked upon as the oldest of all pursuits or occupations ; and 

 although its literature, strictly so called, may be of comparatively 

 modern growth, yet its unwritten history is coeval with the existence 

 of man upon the earth. Our common forefather, Adam, was himself 

 a practical arboriculturist, and it would be extremely curious to us 

 now to know what were the principles by which he and his im- 

 mediate descendants were guided in their propagation and treat- 

 ment of trees. Their knowledge, however, doubtless handed down 

 by oral tradition, — for as far as we know, writing was an undiscovered 

 art in that early period, — would, by its diffusion, become changed, 

 and their modes of operation altered, so that we may be assured 

 the wisdom of our first parent and his more immediate followers 

 died in a great measure with themselves. Still we have in the 

 sacred Scriptures glimpses that show us how, in the dim past, our 

 forefathers laboured as we labour, and interested themselves in the 

 very same pursuits in which we occupy ourselves; and probably, in 

 spite of modern arrogance and pride of civilisation and wisdom in 

 our nineteenth century, their knowledge, if not as extensive, was 

 perhaps quite as accurate as ours upon all the elementary teachings 



