556 Botanical, Floricultural, and Arbcrricultural Notices, 



duced in the trunk of the tree ; but Evelyn and his followers 

 would call them " phyllomania which spent all the Joyce in the 

 leaves, to the prejudice of the rest of the parts." But I have no 

 doubt, if these worthies were alive, and placed under Mr. Cree's 

 tuition, they would soon embrace his doctrines, and would not 

 be long in publishing their recantation to the world. Dr. Liebig, 

 in his Organic Chemistry, says: " The power of absorbing nu- 

 triment from the atmosphere, with which the leaves of plants 

 are endowed, being proportionate to the extent of their surface, 

 every increase in the size and number of these parts is neces- 

 sarily attended with an increase of nutritive power, and a con- 

 sequent further developement of new leaves and branches." But 

 as every possessor of young plantations has not studied vege- 

 table physiology, and as there are many methods of pruning 

 forest trees before the public, and as some of them appear plau- 

 sible enough upon paper, it is but right to give them a fair trial 

 in practice. This Mr. Cree is willing to do, and invites his 

 opponents to do the same. I intend to do it upon a small scale 

 with a young plantation of oaks, and will endeavour to do justice 

 to all parties, if I can understand their methods from the de- 

 scriptions given in the works of those who have written on the 

 subject. If this plan were adopted in various parts of the king- 

 dom, in different soils and situations, it might soon be ascertained 

 which is the best system of pruning, in order to produce the 

 best timber. No doubt many obstacles will stand in the way of 

 the working of such a plan, the chief of these will be prejudice. 

 It is no easy matter for some who have been accustomed to work 

 to one plan, or perhaps no plan at all, to break through their 

 ordinary routine of sawing and hacking. Every innovation is 

 reckoned by them as newfangled nonsense ; and an improved 

 method of doing'a thing is treated by them with scorn and 

 neglect, until it is forced by ocular demonstration upon their 

 obtuse intellects. It would be desirable to see foresters and, 

 forests keeping pace with the improvement of the times ; and 

 whatever may be said respecting trees of other lands, may every 

 lover of his country be enabled to say — 



" Who will, another tree may sing ; 

 Old England's Oak for me." 



West Plean, Oct. 4. 1841. 



Art. VI. Botanical, FloricuUural, and Arboricultural Notices of 

 the Kinds of Plants newly introduced into British Gardens and 

 Plantations, or tvhich have been originated in them ; together xvitli 

 additional Information respecting Plants {tvhether old or 7ieiv) already 

 in Cultivation: the ivhole intended to serve as a perpetual Supplement 



