ARBUTUS. 75 



hard winters, which many times kill the young 

 and tender branches, but rarely destroy the 

 roots ; therefore, however dead they may ap- 

 pear after a hard winter, yet I would advise 

 the letting them remain till the succeeding 

 summer has sufficiently demonstrated what 

 are living and what are dead ; for the winters 

 of 1728-9, and 1739-40, gave us great reason 

 to believe most of the trees of this kind were 

 destroyed ; and many people were so hasty 

 as to dig up or cut down many of their trees ; 

 whereas all those who had patience to let them 

 remain, found that scarce one in five hundred 

 failed to come out again the next summer, 

 and many of them made handsome plants 

 that year." 



The arbutus trees may be propagated by 

 layers, but they are principally raised from 

 seed ; and as they require to be kept in pots 

 for several years before they are ready for the 

 plantation, we must not think the nursery- 

 man's charge exorbitant for demanding a 

 higher price for this plant than for many 

 others of a more delicate nature. 



Monsieur Pirolle tells us in his Bon Jardi- 

 nier of 1822, that the arbutus trees which are 

 raised from English seed are found to be of a 

 hardier nature and better enabled to endure 

 the winter than those raised from the seed of 



