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THE PLANTEE'S GUIDE. 



only to thrive, after half a lifetime of expectation, they 

 show beyond controyersy, to the planter and his friends, 

 how much more speedily trees might have been got up to 

 an equal size from the nursery or the seed-bed ! It is, 

 however, perfectly obvious that nothing less than a 

 miracle — that is, a counteraction of the course of nature 

 for a special purpose — could have effected any other 

 results. 



The third and last error, or cause of miscarriage, 

 remaining to be noticed, is the setting out of plants of 

 too diminutive a size into the open field. This error is 

 not less frequent than the others, and is usually com- 

 mitted by those who condemn the practice of large 

 removals, or who are of opinion that "large trees and 

 small possess similar properties, and are therefore to be 

 managed on similar principles.^^ All thriving wood, 

 they say, whether in masses or open groups, must be got 

 up by means of small plants. Nature, according to these 

 planters, to a certainty produces wood of every sort 

 within a given time ; and experience demonstrates that, 

 if we wait that time, we cannot miss the produce. It is 

 through haste and impatience to anticipate the period 

 that we incur disappointment. It is a well-known fact, 

 as they further allege, that, in the course of forty or fifty 

 years, trees of considerable magnitude may be raised on 

 almost any land in Britain that is of tolerable quality ; 

 hence it must follow that a nobleman's or gentleman's 

 park, which in general is superiorly cultivated, will in all 

 likelihood raise them in a less time. 



On such undeniable data these operators often proceed 

 to fill a whole park with plants taken from the nursery- 

 ground, of three, four, and sometimes six feet high. 

 Great care is bestowed in planting out the trees, and still 

 greater expense in securing them from sheep and cattle. 



