374 



l^^'OTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



been raised by others. Give gentlemen, who are the most partial to 

 planting, but cheap plants, and they neither know nor care about the 

 quality ! 



" No nurseryman, believe me, sir, (at least in this kingdom,) ever raised 

 his reputation or extended his business by the superior quality of his 

 trees, because that must have implied a superior price. Boutcher, the 

 honestest and most judicious one we ever had, (a man more remarkable 

 for the spirit of fair dealing than for any knowledge of the world,) 

 made an attempt, about threescore years since, to improve Scottish arbo- 

 riculture, and to convince the public of their injudicious anxiety for 

 low-priced articles in our line. Had his merit been rewarded with that 

 encouragement which it so eminently deserved, arboriculture would 

 indeed have been improved under such an instructor. His excellent 

 example would long ere now have rendered both science and information 

 indispensable to our profession. But what happened ? Boutcher was 

 undervalued by the ignorance of his age. He was suffered to languish 

 unsupported for years at Comely Garden, and died at last in obscurity 

 and indigence. It would avail little in the present day to dwell on the 

 ignorance and quackery of the men who supplanted him in the public 

 favour. The work on ' the raising of forest-trees,' which he published 

 by subscription, to relieve his wants, is a sufficient proof of his pro- 

 fessional skill ; and the detail of his practice is the severest satire on that 

 of his successors. I conscientiously believe, that the millions of young 

 trees at present raised near Edinburgh, if raised after Boutcher's 

 method, would cover a greater surface than is now covered by the 

 entire metropolis of the North ! 



" Since the time of the Millers and the Boutchers, the little science 

 that was then dawning on our profession, whether in Scotland or else- 

 where, has utterly disappeared from it. Planting and gardening, how- 

 ever, since that period, have come much into fashion in this country. 

 The seed and nursery business has suprisingly increased. Instead of 

 being confined, as formerly, to a scale the most limited and insignificant, 

 it has become one of the most important professions in the metropolis 

 and elsewhere, and fortunes, by consequence, have been rapidly accumu- 

 lated by it. 



" In these circumstances, sir, I conceive that we have been greatly 

 enlightened, respecting the mysteries of the trade, by our brethren of 

 the South. To furnish gardeners to the nobility and gentry, is now 

 found to be the road to wealth ; to sell cheap or dear, the only criterion 

 of merit in the nurseryman. His study, therefore, never is, nor can be, 

 science, or the quality of his plants, but solely and exclusively the art 

 of raising the greatest possible number on the smallest space of ground, 



