PREFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. 



It might at first sight appear a needless task to undertake a 

 formal treatise on an art which almost all men practise^ and 

 profess to miderstand, were it not for the fact that so few prac- 

 tise it with success. 



The removal of large trees, for pleasure or use, is an art of 

 great antiquity. As a branch of arboriculture, it is well known 

 to most modern nations 5 but it has remained still longer than 

 agriculture without any principles to regulate it, as chemistry 

 and physiology, till of late years, have been confined to the re- 

 cluse philosopher, and are little studied or understood by the 

 active and the practical. I trust, however, that the time is not 

 far distant when arboriculture, like husbandry, will engage the 

 attention of some able physiologist, and be thoroughly illus- 

 trated in all its parts. 



Meanwhile, it is the purpose of the present Essay to treat 

 chiefly of "giving immediate effect to wood, by the removal of 

 large trees," and to lay down the principles, and explain the 

 practice, by which that desirable object may be accomplished. 

 In doing this, it is obvious that the art of Geneeal Planting 

 must at the same time be taught, as both, being governed by 

 the same general laws, should of course be practised on the 

 same known principles. In removing wood for the purpose of 

 creating real landscape, plants of a large size are necessarily 

 employed ; and as such materials are far more unwieldy, and 

 more difficult to manage, than those of ordinary planting, they 

 require far greater dexterity, as well as greater science. If, 

 then, it hold true in arboriculture, as it does in logic, that the 

 greater necessarily comprises the less," it is probable that the 

 rules of general planting will in this way be more forcibly im- 

 pressed on the reader's mind, than if they were studied in any 

 other manner. 



