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sell, whereas the other has to buy, or to sell it, after it has been raised 

 by others. Give gentlemen, who are the most partial to planting, but 

 cheap plants, and they neither know nor care about the quality ! 



" No nurseryman, believe me, sir (at least in this kingdom), ever 

 raised his reputation, or extended his business, by the superior quality 

 of his trees, because that must have implied a superior price. Boutch- 

 ER, the honestest and most judicious one we ever had (a man more 

 remarkable for the spirit of fair-dealing, than for any knowledge of 

 the world), made an attempt, about threescore years since, to improve 

 Scottish arboriculture, and to convince the public of their injudicious anx- 

 iety for low priced articles in our line. Had his merit been rewarded 

 with that encouragement, which it so eminently deserved, arboriculture 

 woidd indeed have been improved, under such an instructor. His excel- 

 lent example would long erenow have rendered both science and infor- 

 mation indispensable to our profession. But what happened ? Boutcher 

 was undervalued by the ignorance of his age. He was suflFered to 

 languish unsupported for years at Comely Garden, and died at last, in 

 obscurity and indigence. It would avail little in the present day to dwell 

 on the ignorance and quackery of the men, who supplanted him in 

 the public favor. The work on ' the raising of forest trees,' which he 

 published by subscription, to relieve his wants, is a sufficient proof of his 

 professional skill ; and the detail of his practice is the severest satire on 

 that of his successors. I conscientiously believe, that the millions of 

 young trees at present raised near Edinburgh, if raised after Boutcher's 

 method, would cover a greater surface than is now covered by the en- 

 tire metropolis of the North ! 



" Since the time of the Millers and the Boutchers, the little science that 

 was then dawning on our profession, whether in Scotland or elsewhere, 

 has utterly disappeared from it. Planting and gardening, however, since 

 that period, have come much into fashion in this country. The seed and 

 nursery business has surprisingly increased. Instead of being confined, 

 as formerly, to a scale the most limited and insignificant, it has become 

 one of the most important professions in the metropolis and elsewhere, 

 and fortunes, by consequence, have been rapidly accumulated by it. 



" In these circumstances, sir, I conceive, that we have been greatly 

 enlightened, respecting the mysteries of the trade, Ijy our brethren of the 

 south. To furnish gardeners to the nuijility and gentry, is now found to 

 be the road to wealth ; to sell cheap or dear, the only criterion of merit 

 in the nurseryman. His study, therefore, never is nor can be science, or 

 the quality of his plants, but solely and exclusively, the art of raising the 

 greatest possible number on the smallest space of ground, and furnish- 



