42 



THE planter's GUTDE. 



the device of fashioning the fine heads of the Oak, the 

 Elm, or the Chestnut, after the manner of the Lombardy 

 Poplar, the most formal, perhaps, and most unpictm-esque 

 of all existing trees. Yet, notwithstanding a few such 

 absurdities, we must candidly admit that Marshall was a 

 planter of great skill, and a writer of unquestionable 

 diligence, and, together with the judicious Boutcher, did 

 more to improve the art, than all who had gone before, 

 and probably all who succeeded him. 



If there be any other work in our language, or in any 

 of the languages of modern Europe, in which the art is 

 treated in a preceptive way, or in a way that famishes 

 any important materials for bringing its history down to 

 our own times, the work has escaped my search. Miller, 

 one of the best arboriculturists and phytologists that 

 England has ever produced, informs us that in his time, 

 that is, in the beginning and middle of the last century, the 

 transplanting of large trees had come much into fashion in 

 England. Planters, he says, were " in too great haste 

 to anticipate the slow but certain effects of time ; and by 

 unfortunately adopting the worst possible methods for 

 their practice, they were far less assured of attaining the 

 end they had in view, (or, more properly speaking, they 

 were assured of never attaining it,) namely, the speedy 

 acquisition of thriving trees, than if they had begun at 

 once by raising them from the seed. This failure he 

 mainly attributes to the unnatural and unscientific method 

 of lopping or lightening the tops at the time of removal, 

 which, as he affirms, is destructive alike of the health and 

 the value of trees. He truly observes that, were planters 

 fidly aware of the doctrine of the circulation of the sap, 

 and the curious anatomy of plants, they would perceive 

 that a tree is as much nomished by its branches as by its 

 roots. " For," adds he, " were the same severities practised 



