GENERAL STUDIES IN LATER YEARS. 303 



having recently resuscitated an exhausted garden she now 

 has by adhering to these. 



Among the hints he gave, he used to advise the 

 making of a " trinkie," or small circular trench, round about 

 a bush which it was desired to nourish, at such a distance 

 as that the water or manure should easily reach the 

 spongioles or "tender parts" of the roots surely sound 

 gardening as well as sound science. She recalls his method 

 of striking off young shoots from any tree, by bending a 

 branch down towards the ground, inserting one of its twigs 

 In a mound of earth till it took root while fed by the parent 

 tree, and then cutting it off and planting. John did some- 

 thing similar when he wished to preserve a living specimen 

 of a rare tree which was almost dead. He selected a live 

 branch, however small, inserted it into a box filled with 

 earth and supported at the proper level, until it took root 

 and could be planted alone.* John used also to lend his 

 books on gardening to his friends at Cairnballoch. 



But in spite of John's interest in gardening, he had little 

 admiration for cultivated flowers " florist flowers " he 

 called them as compared with wild ones ; his ideas of floral 

 beauty being greatly bounded by its presentation in a state 

 of nature. This was well illustrated by his conduct on one 



* This method used to be also practised and advocated by the 

 Rev. Dr. Farquharson, F.R.S., parish minister of Alford, a remarkable 

 man, with unusual scientific attainments, at a time when such tastes 

 were rarer in the country, especially amongst clergymen. He wrote 

 well on several subjects in the Transactions of the Royal and other 

 societies, and received his degree for his services to science. He lies 

 buried in Alford churchyard, where a monument has been erected to 

 his memory by his admirers, not far from where the old botanist 

 now reposes. He died about the time John came to Droughsburn. 



