INTRODUCTION. 11 



proprietor of a landed estate is either a planter, or possesses 

 trees already planted. If he is in the former case, he will learn 

 from this Work to combine beauty with utility, by planting, in 

 the outer margins of his natural woods or artificial plantations, 

 and along the open rides in them, and in the hedgerows of his 

 lanes and public roads, trees which are at once highly ornamental 

 and more or less useful — in some cases, perhaps, even more 

 useful — than the common indigenous trees for which they are 

 substituted. If, on the other hand, his estate is already fully 

 planted, he will learn from this Work how he may beautify his 

 plantations by a mode which never yet has been applied in a 

 general way to forest trees ; viz., by heading down large trees 

 of the common species, and grafting on them foreign species of 

 the same genus. This is a common practice in orchards of fruit 

 trees ; and why it should not be so in parks and pleasure-grounds, 

 along the margins of woods, and in the trees of hedgerows, no 

 other reason can be assigned than that it has not hitherto been 

 generally thought of. Hawthorn hedges are common every- 

 where ; and there are between twenty and thirty beautiful species 

 and varieties of thorn in our nurseries, which might be grafted 

 on them. Why should not proprietors of wealth and taste desire 

 their gardeners to graft some of the rare and beautiful sorts of 

 tree thorns on the common hawthorn bushes, at intervals, so as 

 to form standard trees, in such of their hedges as border public 

 roads? And why should not the scarlet oak and the scarlet 

 acer be grafted on the common species of these genera, along 

 the margins of woods and plantations ? Such improvements the 

 more strongly recommend themselves, because, to many, they 

 would involve no extra expense ; and, in every case, the effect 

 would be almost immediate. Every gardener can graft and bud; 

 and every landed proprietor can procure stock plants from nur- 

 series, from which he can take the grafts ; or he may get scions 

 from botanic gardens, the garden of the London Horticultural 

 Society, that of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, or the 

 Dublin Garden at Glasnevin. 



Amateur landscape-gardeners, and architects who lay out the 

 grounds of the houses they have designed, will be enabled, by 

 this Work, to choose the kinds of trees which they think will 

 produce the best effect in their plantations ; and, what is of much 

 more consequence, which will produce a certain effect within a 

 given number of years. Indeed, the want of such a Work as the 

 Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum to professional landscape- 

 gardeners, and a conviction of the great use it would be of to 

 practical gardeners, and to all persons engaged in laying out 

 grounds, or in forming ornamental plantations, first suggested 

 to us the idea of commencing the Work. 



In modern landscape-gardening, considered as a fine art, all 

 the more important beauties and effects produced by the artist 



