385 



Nevertheless, it would be unjust not to add, that the reader will find, 

 in this second publication, some valuable remarks on " the Pruning and 

 Thinning of Trees." Also, he will find, in the more homrly and un- 

 pretending production of honest William Hillington, probably the best 

 inslnictions for conducting those two important processes, tliat exist in 

 the language, together with much good sense and judicious practice, in 

 several other departments. 



The truth is, altliough the public attention has been of late more ex- 

 cited towards the important department of planting than heretofore, it is 

 yet too much regarded as a mechanical art. I entirely agree with the 

 judicious author of the Encyclopedia of Gardening (from whom much 

 of wliat I have said above is taken) on the elTect of culture on trees, 

 and that it is a branch of planting which seems to have been wholly 

 neglected by practical men. They appear, as he justly observes, to 

 have carried it on, with reference to no other end, than the increase it 

 produces on the quantity of timber. To exclude either pruning or cul- 

 ture from a proper system of arboricultural management can never be 

 the design of any sound phytologist : but they are both very questiona- 

 hie agents in the hands of unscientific persons, and they can be employ- 

 ed by no one without extreme caution, and a due regard to those laws, 

 which nature has established as paramount in her works. 



Messrs. Withers and Pontey, the most distinguished advocates of these 

 practices, I take the liberty to think, have fallen into this general error; 

 and content with the hulk of the marketable article, and the shortness 

 of the time within which it can be produced, they have suffered the 

 solidity and durability of timber to escape their notice. With a par- 

 tiality to culture, nearly equal to Mr. Withers's, and deeming it applica- 

 ble to many purposes to which it has not as yet been applied, I conceive 

 that the indiscriminate recommendation of any practice, without a 

 mature consideration of its nature and consequences, is inconsistent with 

 sound science. We should reflect, that the practice we have been con- 

 sidering, would, with all its excellence, ii universally introduced, be an 

 evil the more formidalile on this account, that its effects might not he- 

 come apparent, until it was past a cure. 



Note V. Page 176. 



In the foregoing Note, a good deal has been said, respecting the na- 

 ture and use of trenching. I will now make a few observations on one 

 of the most important and interesting objects, to which that process can 

 be applied, I mean the removal of rushes from land. A greater impedi- 



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