SECTION IV. 



DEVELOPMENT AND ILLUSTKATION OF THE NEW 

 THEOEY OK PEINCIPLE. 



In the foregoing section, the principle or theory sug- 

 gested for an improyed practice in transplanting has been 

 considered as a new principle. But it does not foUow 

 from thence, that I either belieye, or would persuade 

 others, that I have made many new discoveries in phjto- 

 logical science. I have on this occasion merely deduced 

 practice from speculation, and conclusions that are pro- 

 bably new, from facts which others as well as myself 

 must have long since observed. 



Simple and obvious as the principle seems to be, if it 

 have ever occurred to, or been acted on by others, the 

 fact has not come to my knowledge. Of the general 

 practice of this country I may speak with some certainty. 

 I have both seen and heard a good deal of that of our 

 English neighbours. I have made considerable inqimies 

 respecting the practice of France, Germany, and the north 

 of Europe ; from all which it appears, that planters have 

 not sufficiently attended to vegetable physiology, or to 

 what the law of nature is in respect to the effects of 

 shelter and exposure on the growth of wood. In one 

 and all of these countries, trees are at once transferred 

 from close woods or plantations to the open field, and 

 full-grown or large subjects are, like young plants, more 



