34 



THE planter's GUIDE. 



Fitzharding, to multiply the roots of trees, seems little to 

 have attracted his notice. In transplanting, at the 

 numerous places which he improved or altered in Eng- 

 land, this method was never resorted to. The process 

 he followed was a very simple one, namely, to root up 

 the trees by the shortest possible method, and convey 

 them in the speediest way to their several destinations. 

 He preferred, however, to work with his machine during 

 frost, when earth, in masses greater or less, would adhere 

 to the roots, and be readily lifted with them. As to 

 severely defacing, and even pollarding the tops, he con- 

 ceived that it carried with it its own apology : and such 

 seems still to be the general opinion of planters, down to 

 the present period. 



These particulars respecting the practice and machine 

 of Brown, at one time the supreme dictator of taste in 

 landscape gardening in England, were obtained from two 

 of his pupils — the well-known Mr Thomas White, who 

 succeeded to a great part of his business in the northern 

 counties ; and Mr James Robertson, who was sent down 

 to Scotland, about 1750, to lay out Duddingston for the 

 late Earl of Abercorn.'"" This task Robertson performed 

 with credit to himself, exhibiting all the faults and the 

 excellencies of his master. After this his first essay, and 

 making some important changes at Hopetoun House, and 

 on the park at Dalkeith, he laid out Livingston, Dal- 

 housie, Niddry, Whim, Moredun, Culzean, and other 

 places in Mid -Lothian and Ayrshire, which, with the 

 exception of Blairdrummond, were the earliest examples 

 of landscape gardening in Scotland, f 



At all or most of these places Robertson introduced 

 the knowledge of the transplanting machine, together with 



* Note XIV. 



f Loudon's Encyclopedia of Gardening, p. 79. 



