212 LITERATURE OF SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURE. 



of plant or tree life and culture. Had the book in which king 

 Solomon "spoke of everything" that grew, "from the cedar which 

 is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the 

 wall," * been still in existence, modern arboriculturists might have 

 found much to repay them for its perusal ; but in common with 

 much that might have made us humbler and wiser, this treatise by 

 the wisest of men has perished, and we are forced to deduce the 

 principles by which our early forefathers were guided, by simply 

 observing the results of their actions. 



All early history shows that trees were carefully cultivated, and 

 particular attention paid to their preservation. Their planting and 

 felling formed subjects of legal enactment even in the remotest 

 centuries, and continued to be so in many countries down to com- 

 paratively modern times ; while even at the present date, in several 

 continents and empires, State protection to the forests and woods is 

 found to be absolutely essential. In the Mosaic law, for example, 

 we read t that the Israelites were forbidden, in time of war, to cut 

 down trees of any besieged city by forcing an axe against them, lest 

 they should destroy trees of which they might eat; for the tree 

 of the field is man's life. In the early history of many other 

 nations and peoples, we also see that trees were considered and 

 valued. Indeed, in days when the multifarious purposes to which 

 iron can be applied in place of timber were unknown, in peace and 

 in Avar, tree growing must have been a matter of intrinsic importance ; 

 and arboriculture, as a science, must have been studied to some 

 extent, and well understood, although its practice was not reduced 

 to writing, but preserved by oral tradition, and by the successful 

 results of their own and their fathers' experience. 



But while it would be very instructive, and no less deeply inter- 

 esting, to trace out the early history of the literature of arboriculture 

 among all the nations of the old world, we must, for the present, 

 confine our attention in this paper — to endeavouring to decipher, in 

 a cursory manner, its early growth and progressive advance in our 

 own land, — and to investigating both the difficulties it had to contend 

 against, and the advantages accruing from it at the present day. 



The earliest distinct glimpse of the internal condition and rural 

 economy of Britain which we have may be dated from the invasion 

 of our island by the Romans in a.d. 78, and although the primitive 

 inhabitants of the country were totally ignorant of any mode of 

 transmitting their ideas other than by word of mouth, yet the 

 * 1 Kings iv. 33. t Dent. xx. 19 and 20. 



