steuart's planter's guide. 261 



dated to the peculiar circumstances of its case. Here 

 every thing is necessary ; nothing is redundant. In 

 the words of a great philosopher, who was an accu- 

 rate observer of nature, ' Where the necessity is 

 obviated, the remedy, by consequence, is withdrawn.* 

 If these facts and reasonings be correctly stated, the 

 only rational theory of the removal of large trees 

 consists, in prospectively maintaining the same har- 

 mony between the existing provisions of the tree, 

 and the exigencies of its new situation, as had pre- 

 viously subsisted between its relative properties and 

 the circumstances of its former site." 



" In considering the characteristics of trees above 

 mentioned, we should always bear in mind, that 

 every production of nature is an end to itself, and 

 that every part of it is, at once, end and mean. Of 

 trees in open exposures we find, that their peculiar 

 properties contribute, in a remarkable manner, to 

 their health and prosperity. In the first place, their 

 shortness and greater girth of stem, in contradistinc- 

 tion to others in the interior of woods, are obviously 

 intended to give to the former greater strength to 

 resist the winds, and a shorter lever to act upon the 

 roots ; Secondly, their larger heads, with spreading 

 branches, in consequence of the free access of light, 

 are formed as plainly for the nourishment, as well as 



