PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



xli 



Notes, while others were found too extensive to be in any way 

 supphed. As Notes are not the most popular medium through 

 which information can be communicated, perhaps it will appear 

 but a small countervail to this statement to add, that most of 

 the infonnation applicable to general planting is contained in 

 them, as well as that which relates to both horticulture and 

 agriculture. 



In this condition of the Treatise, I submit it, imperfect as it 

 is, to the candour of the reader ; who, if he be a phytologist of 

 research, or, still more, a planter of experience, will appreciate 

 the difficulties which attend a new subject, and make some 

 allowance for the execution under such circumstances. 



In respect to the practical part, I must own that, in treating 

 it, I should have been disposed to enter much less minutely into 

 detail, had I merely consulted my own judgment. But as those 

 fi'iends most anxious about the book cried out most loudly for 

 detail^ and insisted that it was impossible to make it too copious^ 

 I have, for the purpose of gratifying them, introduced under 

 this head so minute a statement of my o^vn practice, that it may 

 probably be considered as more suitable to private communica- 

 tion, or perhaps to oral discussion. 



Presumptuous enough as I must appear to the Enghsh 

 planters, in venturing to beheve that I could say any thing that 

 is new on a subject so familiar to them, or in reprobating 

 some parts of their system, which in an evil horn' I have 

 termed the MuTiLATiNa, I am not wilhng to add to my sins 

 in this way, by seeming also to supersede their practice, and 

 recommend something of my own, which they may think much 

 worse, in its stead. The trath is, that iov facilitij of execution^ 

 and despatch in the field^ my method may be sufficiently well 

 calculated, in the lunited scale of work which I have found it 

 expedient to adopt, and I may therefore view it with a partial 

 eye. But candom- obliges me to admit, that in some respects 

 it is inferior to the English system, (for example, in wholly 

 rejecting the upright position of the tree;) and it would be un- 

 suitable to the large and expensive style of work which is 

 often executed by that ingenious and opulent people, and in 

 some instances with extraordinary success. 



