M'Nab on Hardy Evergreens. 79 



- One of the principal things to be attended to in planting evergreens is, to fix 

 on a dull day for winter planting, and a moist day for spring and autumn 

 planting. There can be no secret in the proper treatment of evergreens ; if 

 there were, I should say that it is in preventing their roots from becoming 

 dry when out of the earth ; to choose moist and cloudy weather for 

 planting : and still better, if we had the power, by foresight or otherwise, 

 to secure a continuance of such weather some time after they have been 

 planted." 



Mr. M'Nab disclaims any " title to originality " in planting evergreens in 

 winter ; and cites some cases, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where it 

 had been done by different persons, and with complete success. A consi- 

 derable number of the evergreens in the new botanic garden were planted 

 by Mr, M'Nab in the winter, " both in the dry part of the garden and in 

 the wet part, and all have done equally well." 



This is the essence of Mr. M'Nab's pamphlet ; but there is a variety of 

 relative matter, of considerable interest both to gardeners and nursery- 

 men I something that is historically worth notice, and something that is 

 amusing. Gardeners, in a district where peat earth is scarce, are directed 

 to take as a substitute equal parts of peat earth, pit sand, and vegetable 

 mould, or old hot-bed dung; or, if these cannot be got, two parts of peat 

 earth undone part of pit sand. In either of these compositions, thoroughly 

 incorporated, most kinds of American plants wUl grow and thrive per- 

 fectly. The same composition may either be used as a top-dressing for 

 peat-earth borders ; or, if too dear, the following composition may be sub- 

 stituted : — Take one part vegetable mould, old hot-bed dung, or old tan, or a 

 mixture of all three ; one part pit sand, one part good garden earth, and in- 

 corporate them thoroughly. 



Nurserymen are presented with a list of hardy evei'greens, a quantity of 

 which they should always keep in pots, for sending to gardeners at a dis- 

 tance. Upwards of sixty species are enumerated, all of which, and a num- 

 ber of others, are constantly kept in pots by the London nurserymen. 



As matter of history, we give the following exti'act : — " Much has been 

 said of late about the ignorance of Scotch gardeners, particularly in a work 

 written by Su' Henry Steuart, entitled TJie Planter'' s Guide, to which some 

 one has written an answer, in a pamphlet under the title of Strictures on Sir 

 Henry Steuarfs Planter's Guide, by a Planter of some Experience. I think 

 this defence of the profession, by the author of the Strictures, ^as unneces- 

 sary. Su* Henry is very unmeasured in his censure, but a libel is innocent 

 when it is notoriously overcharged. 



" I am somewhat interested in this controversy, in so far as Sir Henry 

 has taken from me all the credit of our success in transplanting the trees 

 from the old botanic garden, and ti'ansferred it to Dr. Graham. But this 

 excites in me no degree of anger, because Sir Henry, at the same time, 

 attributes this success chiefly to the circumstance of Dr. Graham's having, 

 at his (Sir Henry's) sVig'gestiow,di.diO\iiedi the previously unheard-of expedient 

 of cutting the roots round the plants some time before transplanting : 

 though, before The Planter's Guide was written, I most distinctly recollect 

 hearing Dr. Graham say, that he told Sir Henry that neither he (Dr. Gra- 

 ham) nor I claimed any merit for inventing what every schoolboy knew ; 

 and that, in point of fact, I had prepared the roots of a number of the 

 transplanted trees in the spring of 1819, before Dr. Rutherford's death, 

 and, consequently, before the present professor of botany had any thing to 

 say in the matter. These statements Dr. Graham has made so often, both 

 in his lectures and in private conversation, that I am sure they are gene- 

 rally known ; and, therefore, an assertion that I was ignorant of this fact 

 till I got my information, at second-hand, from Sii- Henry, gives me no sort 

 of uneasiness." 



