674 Remarks on Billington's Pamphlet on Planting. 



delighted, and by which he obtained his living. I am also 

 sorry that either of the authors should hint at invidious na- 

 tional distinctions between Scotch and English, as if they 

 really were two distinct species of animals ; and that the 

 baronet should have known so little of the acquirements of 

 gardeners in general, as to have led him to treat of them as 

 a race deserving to be proscribed from the management of 

 forest trees ; a department at least very closely connected with 

 their profession, and which forms a part of their study in the 

 early part of their lives. 



I have been led into these reflections by the general tenour 

 of the pamphlet, and shall conclude my brief notice with 

 the following extract concerning the Quercus pedunculata 

 and sessiliflora, or .Robur, entreating your readers to commu- 

 nicate through this Magazine any particulars they may think 

 worthy of notice, respecting the habits, thickness of bark, and 

 quality of timber of each of these species, and their sub- 

 varieties. 



" Among all our writers on planting which I have read, 

 not one that I recollect, except Mr. Loudon, in his Encyclo- 

 pedia of Plants, which I saw since I first sketched these 

 observations, has alluded to the quality of the two distinct 

 species of British oak ; only botanists notice two species. 

 Now I well recollect that when I was in the Forest of Dean, 

 the Quercus sessiliflora was designated by the old experienced 

 wood-cutters as the knot acorn oak, from the acorn growing 

 in clusters, close to the stalk, and considered as producing 

 much better timber than the other kind. As well as I can 

 recollect, the leaves have a darker hue, and more glossy appear- 

 ance, with more numerous branches subdivided into a greater 

 number of smaller ones, diverging from the stem in a more 

 horizontal direction ; whereas the branches of the other species 

 diverge with more acute angles in a more upright position, and 

 do not produce so many small branches, nor such close heads. 

 Might not the knot acorn oak, from its more numerous and 

 smaller limbs and branches, with more annual buds, with young 

 shoots, whereby the tree is increased in substance, tend to 

 give it a firmer, tougher, and harder texture than the other 

 species, similar to what the Billingtonian system of pruning 

 would effect?" (p. 57, 58, 59.) Both species are described 

 and illustrated by wood-cuts in the Encyclopaedia of Plants, 

 and the parts of fructification minutely described and illus- 

 trated in the first volume of the Magazine of Natural History. 

 I intended to give an extract respecting a process of planting 

 an extensive " bare rock," but I must refer to the work itself 

 for this and other amusing and useful hints. 



Perthshire, July, 1830. A. G. 



