INTRODUCTION. 7 



quire the refined taste of the artist, the foresight of 

 the philosopher, and the skill of the scientist, especially 

 as relates to the laws of physiology. If planting is 

 rightly done, the results throughout will be pleasing 

 and satisfactory ; but if wrongly done, disappointment 

 and loss will be the inevitable results. The subject 

 is a comprehensive one, and would take many volumes 

 to exhaust it ; but for the present we shall endeavour 

 only to point out the most common and serious errors 

 connected with it, and how to avoid them. 



No branch of arboriculture more urgently demands 

 our attention, study, and thought than that of trans- 

 planting large forest-trees ; and it is only upon close 

 observation of what takes place in nature, and by 

 observing the operations of her unerring laws, that 

 we can reasonably expect success to attend our labours. 



In the ' Journal of Forestry ' for December 1880, 

 Mr Samuel Neil, Edinburgh, says : " Sir Walter Scott 

 humorously expressed a sentiment of truth when he 

 made the Laird of Dumbiedykes, in the ' Heart of 

 Midlothian,' advise his ' tall, gawky, silly-looking boy,' 

 thus ' Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may 

 be aye sticking in a tree : it will be growing, Jock, 

 when ye're sleeping.' " 



To this passage the great novelist adds the following 

 note : " The author has been flattered by the assurance 

 that this native mode of recommending arboriculture 

 (which was actually delivered in these very words by 

 a Highland laird, while on his deathbed, to his son) 

 had so much weight with a Scottish earl, as to lead to 

 his planting a large tract of country." 



Sir Walter Scott invested 5000 in planting and 

 draining, and set his mind to make Abbotsford a proof 

 of the patriotism, the wisdom, the prudence, and the 



