xxyi 



MEMOin OF THE AUTHOE. 



piece of haugh or meadow, which is surrounded on three 

 sides by plantations, and it is on tliat flat space only that 

 there might be room for exercising your beautiful art. 

 But the meadow is too small to admit of many trees 

 without looking spotty ; and the bank of the riyer which 

 surrounds it on the fourth side, is fringed with the trans- 

 planted trees first noticed. Thus I could not find room 

 for full-grown trees, without displacing those already 

 rapidly advancing into the state I could wish them. They 

 already aff'orded both shelter and amenity ; and I am more 

 interested in thinning them out properly, than in the 

 wish of adding to them. The fact is, I am looking 

 forward to cutting my way out of a forest, while most 

 proprietors have to transplant or grow. 



" I haye been thus tedious in explaining my own situa- 

 tion, that I may giye some reasons for the seeming incon- 

 gruity of highly approving your system without practising 

 it upon any extent, and consequently without being fitted 

 either with tools or machinery. You will observe that 

 I have no park, or any thing approaching" to the name. I 

 sate down on a hill-side, even a bare one ; but now, I am 

 proud to say, covered with wood of my own planting, of 

 about sixteen years' growth, and as thriving as any in this 

 country. 



" The sum of this unsatisfactory evidence is, that my 

 nearest approach to your system has been when I trans- 

 planted young trees, often unfavourable subjects, after 

 their roots had been cut over twelve or eighteen months, 

 and have added a little manure to the extremity of the 

 roots when they are transferred to their new situations ; 

 but I have never lifted a tree thicker than a man's leg, or 

 what I would consider as favoui-able as to bark and 

 branches. On the other hand I have never been guilty 

 of topping or lopping, which I consider as a cruelty ; nor 



