718 



APPENDIX. 



" It is difficult to lay down rules for any system of planting, tvhich may 

 ultimately be useful to this purpose ; time, neglect, and accident, will often 

 produce unexpected beauties! The gardener or nurseryman makes his 

 holes at equal distance, and generally in straight rows ; he then fills the 

 holes with plants, and carefully avoids putting two of the same sort near 

 each other ; nor is it very easy to make him ever put two or more trees 

 into the same hole, or within a yard of each other: he considers them as 

 cabbages or turnips, which will rob each other's growth, unless placed at 

 equal distances ;" page 23. The first sentence in italics I positively deny; 

 and though I could refer to my own practice in several instances, both in 

 extensive plantations and shrubberies, where the same general principles 

 are followed, I rather refer to Fonthill, where this, as far as regards Mr. 

 Repton's argument, is done in the most complete manner. I also refer to 

 the practice of a planter whose writings, as they are well known, may pro- 

 bably be in the author's possession; I mean Marshall's Planting and 

 Rural Ornament, third edition, minute 8th, pages 351 and 352. What 

 can we learn from the rest of the sentence, but that things are in a bad 

 state, and that there is no help for it — We must just continue to have our 

 trees planted " as cabbages or turnips*." The above quotations are the 

 only passages in the whole of Mr. Repton's writings which, in my opinion, 

 have the least pretence to scientific directions for planting; and I am sure 

 they are such as never were, nor ever will be, followed either with success, 

 or effects agreeable to good taste and utility. 



But I have only enumerated the general heads of Chapters IV. and V. 

 of " Observations, &c. " and therefore, in justice to Mr. Repton, I shall 

 particularize them (in italics), and add under each head a remark or two. 



* I have lately had an opportunity of examining the red book from which the author 

 takes these remarks ; which, if possible, more fully convinces me that he neither compre- 

 hends Mr. Price's ideas on the subject, nor understands the mode of putting any plan 

 •f this kind into practice. 



