77 



he frequently frave specimens of transplanting, and these 

 were conducted with a skill, certainly unequalled by any 

 one who had preceded him, and which no one who follows 

 him will easily surpass, with the same sort of subjects. Yet 

 it is surprising that a planter, so conversant with practice, a 

 man too of talents and information like Marshall, seems not 

 to have arrived at any acquaintance with principles. After 

 succeeding in a manner superior to most others, was it not na- 

 tural, that he should have inquired why he so succeeded ? 

 and that knowledge, enlarged by reflection, and confirmed 

 by examples, would probably have led him to some general 

 theory, that bore on practice, and suggested systematic im- 

 provement. Had he been more acquainted with vegetable 

 physiology, and the anatomy of plants, he would have seen, 

 that trees growing m close woods, and trees standing in the 

 oj) en field, are endued with very different properties ; and 

 that something of firmer stamina, and greater magnitude 

 than what the strength of two or three persons could tran 

 sport, was necessary for Park-wood, which we expect is to 

 grow vigorously, and resist the elements, in open exposures.* 

 His judicious method, however, of preparing the pits ; of 

 putting his trees into the ground ; of applying the mould, 

 when so put ; of preserving, distributing, and dividmg the 

 roots, obviously results from an attentive study of the diffi- 

 culties of the art, and, as he himself states, from " real prac- 

 tice."! Still his subjects, like those of his predecessor Boutcher, 

 were drawn mostly from close plantations, for the purpose of 

 thinning them. They w^ere, in the same way, conveyed on 

 " men's shoulders ;" sometimes also on handspikes ; and on 

 particular occasions, on " high timber-wheels." The roots 

 he cut and multiplied, in the same careful manner as directed 

 by Evelyn and Boutcher, but without the numerous removals 



* Rur. Ornam. Vol. I. pp. 360, 361. 

 t Rur. Ornam. pp. 43, 356—361: 



