378 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



should have been of that large description which would have given 

 effect and consequence to their narrow but undulating surface ; while 

 shrubs and underwood, abundantly intermixed, would have conferred 

 on them richness and intricacy. There were a great number of the 

 last-mentioned subjects (I mean shrubs and stools of underwood) at 

 this villa, from five to eight feet high, that would have richly clothed 

 the entire open grounds of the new part of the city. 



In the same way it would be quite practicable, if wished for, although 

 the exposure is considerably greater, to wood the site of what will here- 

 after become our Acropolis, as soon as the projected Parthenon rises on 

 the Calton Hill. But where are the subjects now to be found ? During 

 the provostship or mayoralty of the late excellent Mr Henderson in 

 "1824, I had agreed to give a specimen of what might be done, by 

 planting a very large Sycamore, with a spreading top, on the very 

 highest part of the Hill, near Nelson's Monument. The tree was 

 selected in Lord Moray's grounds for the purpose; but the sudden 

 death of this worthy chief magistrate put an end to the undertaking. 



Note VI. Page 11. 



Highly gratifying as the Report of the Committee of the Highland 

 Society must be to me, as attesting the success of my improvements in 

 the art, and that on authority too high to be called in question ; yet I 

 own I was not less gratified by the flattering mention of them in one 

 of the productions of the Author of Waverley — works which will in 

 all probability live as long as the language endures in which they are 

 written. I regret that 1 am prevented by circumstances from quoting 

 the passage. 



Soon after this Report was made, the Society advertised a premium 

 of ten guineas, or a piece of plate of equal value, for the best Essay on 

 the removal of large trees and underwood. As I had then collected 

 materials for the present Treatise, which were of a more extensive sort 

 than would have suited the Society's regulations, I declined entering 

 into competition for this premium. It was gained by the overseer of a 

 gentleman in Perthshire, a very meritorious person, who gave merely 

 an account of his own practice for some years back. But as he was 

 probably not conversant with science, and had no idea that the art was 

 susceptible of fixed principles, I did not conceive that it precluded, or 

 in any degree anticipated the present publication. 



