THE planter's GUIDE. 



17 



was natural for men to form the wish to give immediate 

 effect to trees, and thereby anticipate the slow progress 

 of time in bringing them to perfection. Accordingly, the 

 practice of removing them of a large size, instead of being, 

 as is generally supposed, a modern invention, lays claim 

 to the honours of a high antiquity. When the Greeks or 

 Romans wanted to designate any thing that was impos- 

 sible, or at least extremely difficult to be performed, they 

 said that it was like " transplanting an old tree ; and 

 their usual way of applying the adage clearly shows, that 

 their experience of the success of the operation was not 

 greatly different from our own at this moment."^^' 



. In presenting to the reader a cursory view of the pro- 

 gress of the practice, from the earliest times down to the 

 present, it is plain that we are too little acquainted with 

 the state of arts and manners in ancient times, to be able 

 to draw very copiously from what has been called the 

 classical ages. The Greeks certainly were unacquainted 

 with the painting of landscape, notwithstanding the sur- 

 prising height to which they carried other departments 

 of the art, and consequently with the picturesque effect 

 of trees. At Rome, landscape painting was first prac- 

 tised only in the time of Augustus ; f and indeed it does 

 not seem to have been cultivated in any striking degree 

 by this extraordinary people, at least if we may judge 

 from the specimens found at Herculaneum and Pompeii 

 at a later period of the empire. The ancients, although 

 they sufficiently understood and cultivated wood, applied 

 it much more to useful than to ornamental purposes. 



The transplanting of trees of a large size appears to 

 have been of considerable importance to the Roman 

 husbandman. Pliny, who wrote during the reigns of 



* Note II. 



t Note III. 



B 



