INTRODUCTION. 



ARBOBicri-TiTEE, according to the common acceptation of the word, is 

 the art of planting and rearing trees and shrubs ; but in the opinion of 

 the most learned savatis of the age it is now also looked upon as one of 

 the most important of the many sciences which regulate the economic 

 and hygienic affairs of nations. 



It is now generally admitted by all enlightened people that trees 

 play a very important part in the general prosperity of any country, 

 and that, by the amount of attention paid by its inhabitants to their 

 cultivation, so may the physical and intellectual standard of the people 

 be estimated. As our surroundings become physically more perfect, so 

 in the same ratio do we become morally better. As one proof of this 

 we have only to refer to the case of some of the ancient nations in Asia, 

 such as Persia, Palestine, and Syria. In the early and most prosperous 

 days of these countries, the inhabitants paid very great attention to the 

 rearing of both fruit and timber trees, and, in consequence, their agri- 

 culture was highly productive, and all classes were prosperous. What is 

 now the condition of these once fertile regions ? It is this : their forests 

 have been long ago destroyed ; their fields are now, comparatively 

 speaking, parched and unremunerative to the cultivators, and therefore 

 agriculture is neglected, and their people have sunk into poverty and 

 wretchedness ; while the civilisation which once regulated their affairs 

 has fallen with them, and left them in the condition of semi-barbarism 

 in which they now are found. 



It is evident from the records which we now possess that the planting 

 of trees was understood and practised in the early days of the world's 

 history, though of course on a more primitive and less methodical plan 

 than is now done in these modem and more enlightened days. Not to 

 speak of what must have been done ia tree planting in the early days to 

 which Holy Writ has reference, but of which no positive proof has been 

 handed down to us, we find from the earliest historians that the Greeks 

 and Romans were great arboriculturists, and made wonderful steps in 

 their time in the rearing of trees, both for ornamental and economic 

 purposes. 



