Arhoricultural Tour in Scotland and England. 295 



The plan is suited to a man of fortune wishing for pretty and 

 comfortable cottages upon his estate ; and it would look well 

 upon a gentle eminence, with wood behind. The lower rooms 

 should be 8 ft. high, and the floor raised at least 1 ft. above 

 the surface of the ground it stands on. 



Yours, &c. 

 Salisbury, Jan. 1831. Selim. 



Art. XIII. Observations made during an Arhoricultural Tour in 

 Scotland and England, during the Autumn of the Year 1830. 

 By Mr. E. Murphy, Agent to the Arhoricultural and Horticul- 

 tural Societies of Ireland. 



Sir, 



In conversation with you in November last, I gave you 

 to understand what were my impressions respecting the 

 state of arhoricultural science in those parts of England and 

 Scotland which I had recently visited. I then informed 

 you that I could by no means agree with the author of the 

 Planter's Guide, in asserting that ignorance on arhoricultural 

 subjects is universal, or even general, amongst the Scotch 

 gardeners ; for, on the contrary, many of those with whom I 

 conversed understood all the principles of the science neces- 

 sary to insure a correct practice ; yet that, owing to those men 

 being in many instances prevented by their employers from 

 carrying this knowledge into execution, my expectations that 

 I should there find in all or most cases a scientific manage- 

 ment of wooded lands was, I regretted to be obliged to say, 

 miserably disappointed. In one place, extensive fir woods of 

 30 or 40 years' standing, which had been planted very close, 

 have never been thinned ; and the trees, I need not say, are 

 long since destroyed : in another place, a thousand acres of 

 coppice are suffered to produce only brushwood, for want of 

 a little care by which it might be rendered very valuable. 

 Here pruning has been altogether neglected, and oaks which 

 were planted with a view to become timber are only fit to be 

 cut over for coppice : there the barbarous system of pruning 

 recommended in Pontey's Forest Primer has been adopted ; 

 and oak trees, which have been divested of their branches 

 for 25 ft. or 30 ft. from the ground, exhibit a spectacle not 

 easily forgotten. 



Fortunately, however, the lamentable neglect and misma- 

 nagement here complained of are not in Scotland, as they are 

 in Ireland, almost universal ; there are many and honourable 

 exceptions : but great pleasure as it would give me to point 



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