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begun to despair of its success. A very few of the plants, 

 meeting with a deep soil, and with sites singularly sheltered, 

 had got up to about twenty feet high. The generality, and 

 especially in trying exposures, had grown to large bushes. 

 What was once their leading shoot had lost its preeminence 

 over the side-branches, plainly indicating, that no further 

 elongation of the stem was to be expected. Moreover, they 

 had begun, like old trees, to be clump-headed, and to assume 

 the appearance of premature old age. As to the expense of 

 the hurdles and pales, five or six times renewed, together 

 with the loss of the ground which they occupied, it amounted, 

 according to the candid acknowledgment of the owner him- 

 self, io far more than the cost of removing proper subjects 

 in the beginning ! The consequence was, that he was 

 persuaded to replant nearly the whole of his park on better 

 principles, and with trees of from five-and-twenty to thirty 

 feet high ; and he lived to see them vigorous plants, produc- 

 tive of picturesque effect in no small degree, with the promise 

 of becoming timber for the succeeding generation. What 

 he most regretted was, not so much the pecuniary loss, which 

 he had actually sustained, as the loss of nearly a lifetime, 

 in vexation and disappointment. 



To the vegetable physiologist (if any such should be 

 among my readers,) it is almost unnecessary to detail the 

 radical and efficient causes of this sp^ies of failure. Every 

 organic creation, whether animal or vegetable, requires, 

 during infancy, the aid of considerable heat, to enable it to 

 develop its powers, and to expand freely. The tenderness, 

 and, indeed, utter helplessness of man and other animals, at 

 this early stage of their existence, press more forcibly upon 

 our notice, than the case of the vegetable tribe, under similar 

 circumstances ; yet both are governed by the same natural 

 laws, and display in their development a striking analogy. 

 The planter who, without due consideration, sets out a 

 tender plant into the open field, would not rashly so expose a 



