£2 



6 







1 



10 











16 



8 



9 



4 







22 



10 







115 



10 







92 Strictures on Steuarfs Planter's Guide* 



have been of the size wanted. Had no means been taken to cultivate the 

 ground, forty years at least would have been required. 



" ' According to the former supposition as to time, and that the trench- 

 ing and manuring for a green crop were properly executed, the crop would, 

 in common cases, pay the cost of both these operations • and the ground 

 being rather more than a quarter of an acre, and ready for planting, without 

 preparatory expenditure, the outlay would be the following : — 



Enclosing \ acre, double railing, 4§ ft. 90 yds., at 6d. 



Planting the ground with various trees 



Keeping with the hoe for two years 



Renewing the railing four times 



Rent of J acre for 30 years, at 15s. 



Accumulated interest for 30 years 



Total expense - - .£151 16 8 



" ' Thus, then,' continues the honourable baronet, ' it appears that, by the 

 ordinary method, you may have a group of plantation, consisting of 22 trees 

 for 151/. 16s. 8d.; and, by means of the transplanting machine, for 11/. 8s., 

 or nearly the thirteenth part of the money ! ! ! ' * And he adds, triumph- 

 antly, ' I conceive that it would not be easy to give a more complete 

 answer than this comparative statement, to the persons who object to trans- 

 planting, on the score of expense; exclusively altogether of the difference of 

 obtaining the effect of wood, in the one case at once, and of waiting thirty 

 years to obtain it in the other.' 



" That our author was capable of making the foregoing statement will 

 surprise no one who has attentively read the Planter's Guide ; but that the 

 Committee of the Highland Society, composed of noblemen and gentlemen 

 of the highest name and literary fame, could have heard it without having 

 their risible faculties excited, is not to be believed ; and that they did not 

 take care to caution then* constituents against the delusive estimate, is asto- 

 nishing. 



" We shall admit that the trees were actually transplanted for the sum of 

 11/. 8s.; but who, in his sober senses, can believe that that sum was the 

 actual cost of the 22 trees, from 25 to 28 ft. high, and which, of course, had 

 been prepared with such diligence and science at least for four years before ? 

 If they would cost him, as he has stated, 151/. 16s. 8d., raised on the pro- 

 montory, how does it appear that they did not cost him the same sum when 

 raised on a spot of the same field a few hundred yards distant ? 



" The statement which Sir Henry made to the committee is equally just 

 and convincing as if he had affirmed that the calves he had bought, and which 

 he had carefully fostered in a well-trenched and manured pasture field, till 

 they had grown large oxen, had cost him nothing more than the expense of 

 removing them from one field to another ! 



" Is it not plain that, instead of contrasting the sum of 151/. 16s. 8d. with 

 11/. 8s., he ought to have added together these two sums, in order to discover 

 the total expense of his 22 transplanted trees- which, instead of being 11/. 

 8s., really amounts to 163/. 4s. 8d. ? 



" We fairly confess we cannot see any way of accounting for the lords, 

 the learned baronet, and the gentlemen giving their countenance to such a 

 piece of arrant nonsense. Indeed, one is at a loss whether most to admire 

 Sir Henry's dexterity in passing off so palpable a joke upon his visitors, or 

 their extreme good-humour or politeness in not noticing and resenting it ; 

 for, to consider both parties serious is impossible." 



After arguing that transplanted trees, with trunks of from 15 to 18 in. in 



" * The three notes of admiration are in Sir H. Steuart's work." 



