SECTION IV. 



417 



according to the points of the compass, in which they previously stood, 

 appears to be a prejudice of great antiquity. Theophrastus, the only 

 writer in ancient times deserving the name of a phytologist, gravely 

 states the opinion, and gives his reasons for entertaining it — namely, 

 the power which habit exerts over all plants, and their inability to 

 resist the elements (see JJepl ^vtcov 'laroplas, lib. ii. 7, and Hepi ^vtoov 

 ''AtTLcov, lib. iii. 6.) In all this he is accurately copied by the Geoponic 

 writers, as may be seen by the quotation from Anatolius (Sect. II. Note 

 VII. ante,) also by Cato, Columella, Palladius, and others. The 

 mode prescribed by the whole of them is, to mark the trees, before being 

 taken up, with white, or other colours, so that the sides which faced 

 the north or south, &c., may be regularly turned again to the same 

 quarters. Pliny, though usually not slow in retailing the fables or the 

 prejudices of others, is the only ancient writer who treats the doctrine 

 with indifference or contempt, (see Hist. Nat. lib. xvii. 2.) Virgil, like 

 those who went before him, describes the same process of marking the 

 south and north sides of trees, but he describes it like a poet : 



" Quin etiam coeli regionem in cortice signant ,* 

 Ut quo quseque modo steterit, qua pai-te calores 

 Austrinos tulerit, quae terga obverterit axi, 

 Restituant : aded in teneris consuescere multum est." 



Georg. lib. ii. 296. 



It is not to be supposed that, among the phytologists of the seventeenth 

 century, there would be any dissenting voices against such ancient autho- 

 rities. Wise, Austen, Cooke, and all our other early arboriculturists, 

 advocate the same system. Even the father of English planting, the 

 respectable Evelyn, who united practice to theory, is so convinced of its 

 soundness, that he is regularly angry with Pliny for treating it with 

 contempt. " The southern parts of trees," he says, " being on a sudden 

 turned to the north, does starve and destroy more trees, how care- 

 ful soever men may have been in ordering their roots, and preparing 

 the ground, than any other accident whatsoever — neglect of staking, 

 {i. e. propping,) and defending from cattle excepted. . . . V^hich 

 monition, though Pliny and some others think good to neglect, or 

 esteem indifferent, I can confirm from frequent losses of my own, and 

 particular trials, having sometimes transplanted great trees at mid- 

 summer with success, and miscarried in others, where the circumstance 

 of aspect only was omitted." — Silva^ vol. i. pp. 98, 99. But it may be 

 observed, that unless these great trees were Fir-trees, or other ever- 

 greens, this worthy man should have reflected, that the extraordinary 

 season he selected for the work (a season which, on other occasions, he 



2 D 



