THE planter's GUIDE. 



69 



themselves out on every side. What, then, are we to 

 condude from these remarkable discrepancies between 

 trees of the same species, although in different situations, 

 but that nature, which orders nothing in vain, has be- 

 stowed these properties for wise purposes, and that they 

 are the best calculated, respectively, to realise in those 

 trees as great a complement of life as their respective 

 circumstances will admit ? 



This conclusion naturally leads us to a closer attention 

 to the progress of wood than is usually bestowed upon it. 

 In infancy, that is, in the seed-bed or nursery-ground, 

 we find that all plants of the same sort are alike, or 

 nearly so. But in a year, and still more in many years, 

 when they go out to form plantations, they experience a 

 great diversity of treatment, and are placed in soil of 

 various qualities, and in various degrees of exposure. To 

 these vicissitudes the plastic powers of plants in process of 

 time accommodate themselves ; so that, in point of form, 

 character, and properties of every sort, they must essen- 

 tially vary from one another, and acquire the properties 

 most suitable to such soils and situations. It is for this 

 reason that to establish any just analogy between the 

 transplanting of young trees and the transplanting of old 

 is utterly impossible, whatever may be believed by most 

 planters to the contrary ; because, the circumstances in 

 both cases being changed, the subjects under their influence 

 change in consequence."'^ 



In considering the characteristics of trees above men- 

 tioned, we should always bear in mind that every pro- 

 duction of nature is an end to itself, and that every part 

 of it is at once end and mean. Of trees in open expo- 

 sures, we find that their peculiar properties contribute, in 



Note VII. 



