General Principles for the Management of Fruit Trees. 499 



and when you impart information do it honestly. There are many 

 who pride themselves on giving wrong names to things, such 

 as plants ; this is a very silly amusement, and ought to be 

 guarded against : a little knowledge of systematic botany will 

 defend you from such imposition and discover the knavery. I 

 will not detain you longer at present, but will leave you to make 

 such arrangements among yourselves as may be thought neces- 

 sary ; I will assist you in your undertaking, if I am able to do it; 

 and my advice and the use of my books will be at your service." 



Before the gardener left the bothy, the young men ex- 

 pressed themselves highly pleased with what they had heard 

 and thanked him for the offers he had made, but were afraid 

 their essay- writing would be a failure. "Make the attempt," said 

 he. "A child is said to walk when he can make two or three 

 steps ; and, although your first should not fill a page, try and do 

 something, and there is no fear that the next will be longer." 



After their master was gone, Colin Forbes said that he 

 thought that if masters were to take as much interest in the 

 welfare of their men as theirs did, a race of better-informed gar- 

 deners would spring up in a few years. "And I believe," said 

 Walter Glenesk, " the master will lose naething by it : there are 

 few minds but feel grateful for a kindness done them, and will 

 be ready, when an opportunity occurs, to do what they can to 

 repay it." — " Ay, ay," said Bauldy Black; "but when will sic 

 men as Donald Blamart, gardener o' Keelynine Castle, gae awa ? 

 Mony a puir chield has he harled to death, to mak up the time 

 that he spent in the Chainge-house. If he had been a man like our 

 present master, I wad hae been abetter scholar; but, instead o' 

 takin' a book in my hand in the winter nights, we were forced to 

 mak tallies and tawtie creels by the loweof a cruisie." — "Well, 

 well, Bauldy, say no more about Donald," said Sandy Mac Alpine ; 

 "we will try and inform you about things that he knows nothing 

 about. I once attended a course of lectures on chemistry; and, 

 with the assistance of the notes I took, which I have still in my 

 possession, and Griffin's Chemical Recreations, and Practical 

 Chemistry, I will show you some things that will perhaps surprise 

 you ; and, by the aid of a few simple experiments, you will be 

 able to understand some of the important operations of nature." 



West Plean, near Stirling, Sept. 1 842. 



Art. III. General Principles applicable to the Management of 

 Fruit Trees. By An Amateur. 



Standard fruit trees occasion less trouble in managing, and are 

 more certain in bearing, than either wall trees or espaliers ; 

 though there are some trees, as the peach, which are too tender 



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