xlvi 



PREFACE TO THE SE.COND EDITION. 



ment of the roots has much more seized the general attention, 

 and that particularly the use of cutting round them, so as to 

 enlarge their fibrous development, has been greatly overrated. 

 The common impression seems to be, that when this opera- 

 tion (which is comparatively imimportant, and not always 

 necessary) is once performed with diligence, the planter is 

 released from the task of studying any one of the more useful 

 branches of the preservative system. 



The third and last circumstance which I shall notice is, the 

 obtaining a proper stock of subjects — and that, I fear, is not 

 deemed more difficult, or more important, than the proper 

 selection of them. Without a stock of trees of all sorts, com- 

 mensurate to the planter's wants, no one can reasonably expect 

 to create at pleasure a succession of real landscapes ; because, 

 for that purpose, trees in every variety of form, such as exist 

 at this place — the high and the low, the massive and the light, 

 the spreading and the spiral — should be at the absolute com- 

 mand of the designer. Gentlemen peruse my book, where 

 they find a certain theory held forth. They perhaps visit the 

 place, where they are surprised to see their idea of the theory 

 even surpassed by the practice. They then go away with the 

 impression that there is nothing so easy as an art of which 

 they do not think it worth while to study the principles, or 

 even to provide themselves with materials for the practice!^ 



Taking these plain facts and circumstances into view, and 

 that of the general notice which the new art has attracted, it 

 seems extremely probable that the repute it has so suddenly 

 acquired may eventually prove the cause of its oim failure. 

 Seduced by an account, however correct, of an effective and 

 rapid field-practice, of which the simplicity seems to equal the 

 success of the execution, ignorant or superficial persons might 



* I know no one in this neighbourhood who has so large a stock of beauti- 

 ful subjects as Lord Morton, in the park at Dalmahoy. They are all finely 

 'prepared hy nature, in consequence of the thinning system adopted by his 

 lordship's predecessor. The late lord used twice a-week to hunt a pack of 

 small beagles over his plantations, from the time they were six feet high ; and 

 his rule for thinning, as he told me, was to give himself full room always to 

 ride through them." This was, at least, a very sporting, if it was not a scientific 

 way, of preparing his materials. 



