Hema?*ks on Steuart's Planter's Guide. 415 



by other books than those of worthy Mess John Quackleben's 

 Flower of a sweet Savour, or Doctor Lightfoot, however pon- 

 derous his volume might have been. But although I do not 

 return thanks to any of our northern lights, I must thank the 

 many intelligent gardeners I have lived under ; and last, but 

 not least, A Discourse on Forest Trees, by John Evelyn, Esq., 

 in my possession, where he tells us about Count Maurice, 

 governor of Brazil, planting a delicious paradise near Fri- 

 burg, containing 600 cocoa trees of 80 years' growth, and 

 50 ft. high to the nearest bough. These he wafted on floats 

 and engines four long miles, and planted so luckily that they 

 bore abundantly the very first year. Nor hath this succeeded 

 in the Indies alone ; Monsieur de Fait, one of the mareschals 

 of France, hath, with huge oaks, done the like at Fait. He 

 then brings it nearer home : a great person in Devon planted 

 oaks as big as twelve oxen could draw, as he was told by the 

 Right Honourable Lord Fitz-Harding, who hath himself 

 practised the removing of great oaks by a particular address, 

 extremely ingenious, and worthy the communication : he then 

 states what this is : — Choose a tree as big as your thigh, remove 

 the earth from about it, cut through all the collateral roots, till, 

 with a competent strength, you can force it down upon one 

 side, so as to come with your axe at the tap-root, cut that off, 

 re-dress your tree, and so let it stand, covered about with the 

 mould you loosened from it till the next year, or longer if you 

 think good ; then take it up at a fit season, it will likely have 

 drawn new tender roots, apt to take, and sufficient for the 

 tree, wheresoever you shall transplant it, &c. &c. Now, where 

 can there be the least doubt that many gardeners in Scotland 

 have read this work, and acted upon it, long ere they heard of 

 Sir Henry Steuart ? — at any rate, I know some that did. But, 

 to prove that there are many of these new discoveries which 

 are perfectly old to a number of gardeners, if your correspond- 

 ent who gives his trees a top-dressing of stones would look 

 into Virgil, Georg. ii., he will there find it described as a thing 

 very commonly done; and if Mr. Billington will look into 

 Evelyn's Sylva, he will see that he recommends rubbing off the 

 buds, or else the very young branches ; any thing else makes 

 him shudder, except where they have been neglected. He 

 quotes Lawson, who published in 1597, who says he can 

 form a tree into any shape or form, with a fine clear stem, 

 without any wounds, by following it up from infancy. All 

 this clearly proves to me that these things have all been seen 

 and acted upon before, and gardeners are not ignorant of 

 them at this day : but I agree with Quercus that it is not gar- 

 deners or wood-foresters that are to blame for the ill-pruned 



