375 



rent countries, and practised in rsacli under different circumstances, aa 

 it is in England.* Had some conceited Scotch gardener, now fattening 

 in that cotmtry, committed this " fundamental error" iti a public state- 

 ment, and on the titlepago of a book, we should not liavc been so much 

 surprised, and attributed it merely to ignorance ; but as it is, it certainly 

 must appear very striking, in a person of Mr. V/ithcrs's education and 

 intelligence. By a statement so often and so confidently repeated, un- 

 informed readers are led to believe, that, in the arboriculture of Scot- 

 land there are some strange and peculiar modes of executing large 

 designs of wood, quite different from those known in England, and 

 which its gardeners (who every where abound) are desirous, from some 

 unintelligible motive, to introduce into the latter country : whereas, the 

 truth is, as I have more than once stated in the present work, that it is 

 to the English alone, that the Scotch are indebted for any knowledge 

 they possess of the useful arts, and of that of planting among others ; 

 that they are ambitious to practise, and do practise them, solely after 

 the English methods ; and, if they ever venture on any improvements 

 of their own (which in this instance has not been the case), that it is 

 with becoming deference to such able instructors. It is therefore to be 

 hoped, that so judicious a writer as Mr. Withers, when he next publishes 

 on the same subject, will correct a statement, which is unfounded in 

 point of fact, and besides rather savours of national prejudice ; a feel- 

 ing decidedly illiberal, and altogether out of fashion in the present day. 

 The very favourable manner, in which Mr. Withers's first pamphle t 

 was received by the public was, of course, very gratifying to the author, 

 and seems to have led him to assert the universal applicability of the 

 trenching method. What was good for Norfolk, he naturally thought, 

 could not well be bad for any other tract of country, whether the High- 

 lands of Perthshire, or Yorkshire, or Connaught ; and that whatever 

 system of planting was calculated to produce (as Pontey expresses it), 

 " the greatest weight of marketable wood," and to produce it soonest 

 and cheapest, must necessarily be the best for all possible purposes, 

 whether manufacturing, agricultural, or naval. Fully impressed with 



* Mr. De Perthuis is of the opinion usually entertained in England, and also by Sir 

 Walter Scott, that trenching with the spade is too expensive to be practised by the land- 

 owner, unless for plantations intended for ornament near the mansion-house On sent 

 que le defoncemenl ne peut sire fait qiC U bras d'hommes ; el cotnme il occasionne une 

 grande depense au pruprietaire, il no pcut guercs e7ii2ilot/er ce moyen. lorsque sesfac- 

 ultes pecuniaircs Ic lui permcltent, que da7is Ics plantations dcslinecstl la decor ation 

 de sa maison — P 2S~. The Fiench have likcwiijo an odd way of cultivating planta- 

 tions, en rayons, that is, in narrow strijis for the trees, leaving the intervale unculti- 

 vated. 



