LITERATURE OF SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURE. '2:'.'.) 



of arboriculture, and it is not until about the years 1780-90 that 

 public attention found leisure to devote itself to the development 

 of rural economy and the peaceful improvement of agriculture 

 and arboriculture. ]STo doubt, in 1765 the "Scots Gardener" 

 appeared, a small quarto volume of much curious and interesting 

 matter. It related chiefly to subjects and operations suited to 

 the climate of Scotland, and embodied with it the Earl of Had- 

 dington's treatise on forest trees. This volume was written and 

 compiled by J. Eeid, gardener to Sir G. Mackenzie of Eosehaugh, 

 and was dedicated to the " Ingenious planter in Scotland." We 

 thus see that, despite civil commotion, the minds of the practical 

 men of the country were being fully awakened to the necessity for 

 more careful attention to arboricultural studies, and to more extensive 

 planting of woodlands. Indeed, about this period — 1770-1775 — 

 a strong current set in, in favour of a general improvement of Scot- 

 land, and of a more extensive system of planting, upon what might 

 be styled an almost national scale. This full tide of public feeling 

 and desire gained its height in 1784, when the Highland Society of 

 Scotland was founded. The incorporation of such a Society natur- 

 ally led to a direct advance in all rural matters. The steady pro- 

 gress in agricultural affairs, which had been quietly making its way 

 amongst the tenantry of Scotland, suddenly received an incalculable 

 impulse ; and as by the auspices of the new Society it became neces- 

 sary to shelter and secure climate for some of the land placed under 

 cultivation, planting became requisite in the first place for shelter, 

 and this led to the adoption of forests and woods, and of arboricul- 

 tural subjects under the auspices of the Highland Society. The 

 encouragement given by the Society to planters (whether proprietors 

 or tenants), naturally led to increase the popularity of the Society ; 

 and the premiums subsequently offered for such arboricultural sub- 

 jects as were specified for the year, tended greatly to an enhanced 

 knowledge of tree-culture being manifested and followed among 

 practical arboriculturists in Scotland. Indeed, the prize essays of 

 the Highland Society upon arboricultural subjects may be con- 

 sidered as one of the chief features in the literature of Scottish 

 arboriculture for many long years, and down even to the present 

 day. The advantages acquired from the intercourse and mutual 

 interchange of opinions with practical men, rendered necessary for 

 writers of monographs for this Society, have led to the notice of 

 many curious and singular phenomena in tree-life and its develop- 

 ment under peculiar circumstances, which would probably, but for 



