THE TLANTEK 8 OITIDE. 



279 



dimensions of tlic trees were from five-and-twenty to five- 

 and-thirty feet Ingii, and from ten to fourteen inches in 

 diameter, or from two feet six to three feet six inches in 

 actual girth. But on casting up the expense, mj friend 

 was both dehghted and surprised to discover that, instead 

 of £2 and £3 as he had anticipated, they had not cost 

 him quite 10s. per tree ! 



The last person the evidence of whose practice I shall 

 adduce is Sir Walter Scott, Bart., whom to name, is to 

 name whatever is splendid in genius, versatile in talent, 

 and correct in judgment. This eminent individual has a 

 place beautifully situated on the Tweed, in Roxburgh- 

 shire, near Melrose, in the midst of those scenes of tradi- 

 tional and peculiar interest which have been illustrated 

 and immortalised in his writings. To the variety of 

 attainments for which Sir Walter is distinguished, he 

 adds the knowledge of arboriculture. He is ardently, 

 and I may say enthusiastically, attached to the cultivation 

 of wood. Though possessed of the property only sixteen 

 years, he has planted nearly five hundred acres of surface ; 

 and, by the acknowledgment of all his neighbours, few 

 plantations are cultivated with the same skill, and none 

 liave grown with more luxuriance than the woods of 

 Abbotsford. 



There is no one, as may be imagined, of all the advo- 

 cates of the preservative system, who more freely and 

 fully admitted its utility, and its consonance to the law of 

 nature, than Sir Walter, as soon as its principles were 

 made known to him. Attached, though not bigoted, to 

 whatever belongs to Scotland, perhaps he might regard ^ 

 the theory with an eye the more partial that it had its f 

 origin in his native country. But neither his public func- 

 tions nor his private studies have allowed him much time 

 to enter extensively into the practice of the art. His chief 



