MS 



is applicable lo those organs, m plants of any age. This doctrine la 

 not new, as it was known and acted on, more than a century ago. 

 About forty years since, it was revived by Marshall and others, and is 

 now a favourite one with some of the best writers of the present day, 

 from whom I regret being under the necessity of differing. The fact 

 is, that the basis of the proposition, in respect to young plants, being 

 unstable, any superstructure raised upon it must fall to the ground. 

 But were this otherwise, and that it were right to mutilate young plants, 

 it would not from thence follow, that old plants should likewise be mu- 

 tilated ; because (as has been explained in the text) plants, like 

 animals, being the creatures of circumstances, circumstances in both 

 old and young are perpetually changing ; therefore similar properties 

 never can be possessed by both. 



In one of the most scientific, and justly popular works of the present 

 times, " The Encyclopedia of Agriculture," we find the above propo- 

 sition, respecting old trees, enunciated in the broadest and most un- 

 qualified terms; and so clear and undeniable does it appear to the 

 author, that he reduces its application to a sort of arithmetical propor- 

 tion, and in that condensed form delivers it as an axiom, for the guidance 

 of the young planter, in retrenching the tops, as well as the roots of his 

 large trees.* " As the whole quantity of roots (says he), which the 

 tree had before removal, is to the whole quantity of branches which it 

 now has (i. e. when not mutilated), so is the quantity of roots which it 

 now has (after mutilation), to the quantity of top which it ought to 

 have." In other words, as you have no means of taking up roots, in 

 sufficient number to nourish the branches, and must on that account 

 retrench and mutilate them, so you may even lop and mutilate the 

 branches also, to the limited number, which can be nourished by your 

 roots. Now I should conceive, that the more philosophical way of pro- 

 ceeding would have been, first to ascertain, by facts and experiments, 

 whether it were right and salutary, for the well-being of the tree to 

 lop and lighten the branches at all ? And, if it appeared to be proper 

 not to lop, but to preserve them, then to seek for some method of taking 

 up the roots in such numbers, as were adequate to the sustenance of 

 the branches. This, as appears in the text, is the very object and basis 



* Lest there should be any doubt, that the lightening of the tops of the trees is lucant 

 to be a complete one, we find, that the two trees, shown attached to the transplanting 

 machines, in the two wood-cuts in the Encyclopedias of Gardening and Agriculture,are 

 effectually lightened, and reduced to nearly the conditon of pollards. See Card, p 335. 

 Agricult. p. 454. 



