317 



er the gardener's opinion or niinc prevailed witli the good-natn red owner. 

 But the probabiUty i.s, that the i)laco will remain in statu (juo, and the 

 badness of both soil and climate be deplored or reprobated, for anothet 

 generation. 



Note II. Page 7. 



So general is the feeling, among the best-informed classes, respecting 

 the want of intelligence on the important subject of Wood, that t 

 believe, a proposal for the establishment of an Arboricultural Society 

 in Scotland, if properly made, would be as ardently gone into, as it would 

 be universally approved. It is astonishing to think, that, up to the pre- 

 sent time, no such Society should any where exist in the United King- 

 doms. The importance and the uses of Wood are so great and mani_ 

 fold, and its improvement of such paramount interest to the empire 

 in general, and to individual districts in particular, that there are really 

 few objects, which are calculated lo unite so many suffrages in their 

 favour. 



In respect to the beneficial results, which the labours of such a so- 

 ciety would produce, they are generally but very imperfectly hinted at in 

 the text. Perhaps one of the most remarkable is, the change that would 

 take place, in the character, education, and acquirements of our nursery- 

 men, by far the most influential agents in the melioration of our future 

 Woods ; because it is upon them that we must depend for the nature of 

 the materials. Should such a society be soon established, I should yet 

 hope to see nurserymen come forth as they ought to do, able botanists, 

 intelligent agriculturists and gardeners, vegetable physiologists of re- 

 spectable information, and, in a word, men of general science. 



Probably the truth is, that reformation, if it be begun in earnest, must 

 begin elsewhere. Were the class of persons J?r5^-mentioned in this enu- 

 meration in the text (namely, " well-informed landholders"), by any 

 means to rise up, the two others would follow, as a necessary conse- 

 quence. Let us hear one of the most candid and intelligent nurserjTnen 

 in Scotland on the subject. On my observing to him lately, how much 

 it was to be regretted, that there was " no science" to be found among 

 men of his profession, he replied nearly as follows : 



" Of what use or value, sir," would science be to us, while nothing of 

 the kind is possessed by our employers ? As nurserymen, seedsmen, or 

 florists, we are mere dealers in the articles we sell ; in the same 

 way as the shopkeeper is in sugar, snuff, or haberdashery goods ; only 

 with this difference respecting us, that we raise or produce the article we 



