10 



THE planter's GUIDE. 



the science ; they have tended to correct the errors and 

 supply the omissions of former writers, and to bring for- 

 ward, in one luminous view, both their own discoveries 

 and those of foreign nations. 



Let us therefore hope that the present attempt to bring 

 vegetable physiology into general notice, by applying it 

 to the practice of arboriculture, may not be less success- 

 ful than that of the applying chemistry to husbandry, 

 which, to the astonishment of Europe, has rendered the 

 cultivation of the soil a new art in modern hands. The 

 culture of wood, as has been already observed, in point of 

 rank and importance certainly stands next to the culture 

 of the soil, and in point of attraction it stands a great 

 deal higher, from the delightful effects it every where pro- 

 duces — whether they are seen in the seclusion of the grove, 

 the richness of the park, or the endless charms of woodland 

 scenery. Since the ladies of late have become students 

 of chemistry, it is not too much to expect that they will be 

 ambitious of attaining proficiency in a science so much 

 more akin to their own pursuits ; and that country gentle- 

 men, emulous to profit by so illustrious an example, will 

 not suffer vegetable physiology to be any longer a desi- 

 deratum, either in their own acquirements, or in those of 

 their gardeners, their foresters, or their land-stewards. 

 Thus a new era will be brought about in British arbori- 

 culture, of which the most remarkable circumstance is, 

 that it has not been brought about before, amidst the 

 advancement of the other arts : and thus England, 

 which a century and a half ago was the birthplace and 

 the cradle of vegetable physiology, will soon give lessons 

 in scientific planting as well as agriculture to the rest of 

 Europe. 



Although, I trust, I am not too sanguine in these 

 pleasing anticipations, yet I own that I did not at first 



