Remarks on Billington 's Pamphlet on Planting, 673 



Art. XI. Remarks on Mr. Billingtoris Pamphlet on Planting, Sj-c. 

 By A. G., Perthshire. [See our Notice of this Work, p. 473.] 



Sir, 



Mr. Billington is more successful in the forest than in 

 the closet, while his antagonists are more distinguished at 

 wielding the pen than the spade ; and it is to be regretted 

 that the talents of this kind possessed by the baronet or 

 Mr. Withers should be employed in any degree to detract 

 from the merits of so well-meaning and defenceless a person 

 as Mr. Billington appears to me to be. In writing he is by 

 no means on an equal footing with either; but in point of 

 practical experience, his professional avocations as a gardener 

 and forester have afforded him opportunities of acquiring an 

 intimate knowledge with the practical parts of planting, rear- 

 ing, and pruning forest or other trees or plants, which neither 

 of these gentlemen can possibly possess, however beautifully 

 they may flourish with their pens, when they fancy they have 

 hit on some discovery in the economy of vegetation ; which, 

 however, has been familiar to the mind, and formed part of 

 the every-day practice, of every gardener worthy of the name, 

 for a century before either of these modern foresters was in 

 existence. Their writings, however, are not without their 

 use. They are read by the upper ranks of society, who 

 would hardly deign to look over the less finely turned 

 periods of the obscure practical forester or humble horticul- 

 turist; and thus they excite attention to a subject amongst 

 that class to whom it is of the most importance. If practical 

 gardeners should have leisure and inclination to glance over 

 their works, they could not help smiling at the mighty import- 

 ance which these great personages attach to, and the over- 

 weening anxiety with which they endeavour to appropriate to 

 themselves, what they conceive to have been hidden from the 

 wise of all former ages, and instinctively revealed to them, and 

 generously published by them for the benefit of all ages yet 

 to come ; processes, too, of which every professional gardener 

 would blush if he supposed he were thought ignorant; and 

 some few favourite theories the absurdities of which he would 

 blush not to be able to detect. I believe the love of fame is 

 a besetting sin with poor and rich ; and in the pamphlet 

 before us I can detect a little spice of this frailty in our 

 friend and brother, Mr. Billington. I do not blame him for 

 claiming his honest share of that fame of which he supposed 

 himself robbed ; but I am sorry he has done it in so bungling 

 a manner. Allowances, indeed, must be made for irritated 

 feelings, and other existing circumstances connected with his 

 " permission to retire" from an office in which he evidently 



Vol. VI. — No. 29. x x 



