THE planter's GUIDE. 



307 



to improve them, it is solely because their employers seem 

 quite unconcerned and indifferent as to these important 

 subjects. While noblemen and gentlemen, who make 

 extensive plantations, have no rule of preference in nursery 

 plants but their cheapness, he necessarily must, in their 

 eyes, be the best nurseryman, who can raise the greatest 

 number of plants, whether Oaks or others, on the smallest 

 space of ground, and furnish them consequently at the 

 lowest price. It is quite obvious, therefore, that the 

 cheapest acorns, as we have seen, being those of the up- 

 right Oak, nothing except that species is ever thought of 

 or cultivated. 



In such a state of things, I conceive that it would be 

 worthy of the Highland Society of Scotland, as the 

 general patrons of planting and agriculture, to honour 

 with their notice the cultivation of the sessile-fruited or 

 spreading Oak, and especially of its two varieties now. 

 brought into view. By holding out a premium to the 

 nurseryman who should raise the greatest number of 

 healthy plants of this description, there is little doubt but 

 that the superior value of the tree would ere long become 

 known to the public. Were this done, the judges em- 

 powered to decide should not pronounce before the 1st of 

 February in any year, for the tree itself, nor before the 1st 

 of May, for the two varieties or aboriginal kinds ; and no 

 specimens without a fuU coat of foliage, should be admitted 

 to the competition. By these means, and by a due atten- 

 tion to the botanical characteristics, all spurious sorts 

 would be effectually excluded. The two aboriginal sorts, 

 and especially the white, from its upright and stately 

 character, would, for clean stem and fine timber, soon 

 come into fashion with the great planters of the north ; 

 and public-spirited individuals, on a small scale, would 

 speedily follow their example. 



