PREFATORY . ix 



rare holiday. Various other causes militate against 

 such expeditions — want of leisure, lack of where- 

 withal, and yet one more still cogent reason, brevity 

 of life. 



" Of making books," said the preacher, ** there is 

 no end," and of hunting up trees, say we, there is 

 no finality. 



A survey from China to Peru, if carried out in 

 entirety, would not exhaust the question. 



Then, again, it should be emphasized that nothing 

 is written here with any remote idea of aiding the 

 expert ; our sense of proportion is far too acutely alive 

 to nourish for a minute such a thought. The book is 

 addressed only to those who take up such subjects 

 more in the light of a secondary or subsidiary accom- 

 plishment. To the few only is it given to pursue to 

 the core any pet scheme of life. The majority have 

 to spend a larger proportion of their time upon earth 

 in following up duties that give them rather less 

 than great abstract pleasure. There are many, to 

 employ university metaphor, who though they are 

 debarred by the perversities of fate from aiming at 

 a class in the Honours school, may be desirous of 

 matriculating in the subject, or perchance even 

 obtaining a testamur in the pass examination tests. 

 One thing, we are told, leads to another, and if this 

 little effort on the behalf of arboriculture induces 

 any to go farther in Altiora Peto spirit, and to try 

 to scale the more Olympian heights of a fascinating 

 subject, the labour will not have been in vain, and 

 the labourer's light task more than amply recom- 

 pensed. 



