394 



understanding, it is merely (as the schoolmen say), taking the objective 

 for the subjective, or vice versa, as may suit the circumstances of the 



case. 



Note II. Page 217. 



I am not certain, if" janker" be a term known to the English wood- 

 merchant. In Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other great towns in this king- 

 dom, a pole or beam, from fifteen to thirty feet long, of great strength, 

 and fortified with iron, when mounted on a crossbar, with a pair of high 

 wheels at each end, is called " a janker ;" and the immense logs of wood, 

 ■which are transported by means of it, from one place to another, are 

 swimg under the axle : and consequently under the pole also of the 

 machine. 



In the transporting, or the planting of spreading trees, with a ma- 

 chine constructed on this model, there could be no room for the tops ; 

 because the branches would be chafed to pieces, and destroyed by the 

 hind wheels. But were the top to be much lightened, or still more, were 

 it to be pollarded, as is often done in both Scotland and England, and 

 reduced nearly to a log of wood, the janker would act as a most efficient 

 implement, and very heavy subjects might be removed by it. More- 

 over, the work would be executed far more rapidly, and at a fourth part 

 of the expense of the platform, and the preserving of the upright posi- 

 tion of the tree. I have sometimes thought, that it might be practicable 

 to apply this sort of machine with advantage to the Preservative system, 

 by making the length of the pole equal to the full height of the tallest 

 tree you mean to remove, and so the hind wheels would raise the top 

 sufficiently off the ground. If the fore wheels, for example, were six 

 feet high, the hind ones might be eight, which would afford sufficient 

 room for elevation ; and thus the branches might perhaps be managed 

 with greater facility and safety, than by any other method. But the use 

 of such a machine would necessarily be limited to operations on an open 

 surface. It must be all " plain sailing," as the seamen say, and no sud- 

 den turns, intricacies, or narrow passes, such as often occur, would be 

 admissible in its route. 



