PREFACE. 



Being a farmer's only son, I was, when a boy, tolerably well grounded 

 in reading, writing, and arithmetic, in a country school; and just when 

 entering my teens my parents ofttimes conferred together, and event- 

 ually decreed that I should be sent to modern Athens to obtain 

 learning and equipment for the pulpit. The spade, however, was more 

 consonant to my young ideas than the pen ; and the country had in 

 my estimation more charms than the town ; and the mute sermons of 

 trees, and the mellifluous songs of birds, had more endearments for the 

 rustic boy, who, being from infancy an ardent lover of Dame Mature, 

 elected arboriculture as a profession. Such being the case, I am, as a 

 matter of course, a working, and, to a certain extent, a self-educated 

 man ; having no claims to the title of a proficient, either in literature 

 or botanical science ; nor is my present appearance as a public 

 instructor chiefly of my own choice, nor my object a mercenary one : 

 the preparation of the following pages for the press has been to me 

 a labour of love, inasmuch as Pinace^ have always been my 

 especial favourites, and in my estimation the most noble, valuable, and 

 lovable of ISTature's arboral productions. My present appearance, there- 

 fore, must needs be considered as a practical writer upon this branch of 

 the arboricultural art practically considered, although I have dared to 

 criticise, nay, to condemn, the dicta of many learned men, and many of 

 my literary and botanical peers ; for which grave oftence, no doubt, I 

 shall incur their great displeasure, and, as a matter of course, get most 

 severely lectured and ''criticised for my presumption. As, however, I 

 write for practical readers, I care but little for what theoretical botanists, 

 or literary pedants, may maintain against me. 



