36 



little sap from the old stool, yet they will, if an or- 

 dinary moist season, receive as much as make them 

 take root, and form themselves ; by attending to 

 this, you will have, in many instances, growths this 

 autumn, but particularly next spring. Although 

 they may not have sent out a green blade this 

 season, there is not the slightest room to despair.* 



Again, to those who have only tried the method 

 of layering for the first time this season, their 

 failure, I grant is particularly discouraging ; 

 yet the utility of layering and cutting over, by 

 many years experience, is incontrovertible, and 

 can be attested by thousands ; and by attending 

 to the foregoing method, I am perfectly assured 

 it will save the expense of replanting. 



I beg to observe, before taking my leave of you, 

 that this season I have observed, both in different 

 places of Scotland and Ireland, many trees in plan- 

 tations of twenty and thirty years old, which had 

 previously been most vigorous in their growth, 

 completely dead in the tops ; although the buds 

 came out, they never bladed ; but these are chief- 

 ly in plantations where the ground is over-burden- 

 ed for want of timely thinning ; these, however, 



* Since the above was circulated, I had occasion, so late as Novem- 

 ber, to be on the estate of Duntroon, in Argyleshire, the property of 

 Niel Malcolm, Esq. where his forester, James Gow, had layered down 

 not fewer than 50,000 oak and Spanish chesnut, early in spring, in 

 one plantation, from natural shoots, &c. and not five layers out of 

 the hundred, on an average, had failed ; a great many of them had 

 made fine shoots of from two to three feet, and were very healthy. 

 The Spanish chesnuts were particularly promising notwithstanding 

 the drought. 



