SECTION V. 



Note I. Page 121. 



The important principle here touched upon is not so fully illus- 

 trated as it might have been. If the reader have attentively considered, 

 first, the principles promulgated, and next their development and 

 application in the selection of subjects, the conclusions which he should 

 arrive at will necessarily follow. In the words of the text, " He may 

 rest assured, in this case, that his success or miscarriage will be in the 

 precise ratio in which his subjects may have obtained the protecting 

 properties. If fully obtained, the progress of the trees will be visible 

 from the beginning ; but if imperfectly, their progress will be retarded 

 until the deficiency be made up." Yet, as the errors most commonly 

 committed by planters, and the ill success that attends them, usually 

 result from an improper selection of subjects, I shall say a few words 

 upon it here, by way of practical commentary. 



Nineteen times in twenty, or, much more probably, ninety-nine times 

 in a hundred, planters who remove large trees select their subjects 

 injudiciously. Perhaps, more correctly speaking, they make no selection 

 at ally according to sluj preconceived principle, or rule of choice. 

 Supposing a man carefully to take up and plant a tree so selected, 

 which has tolerable roots, it necessarily follows that it must have 

 tolerable branches. But it may happen, from the circumstances in 

 which it has been placed, that it is deficient in stoutness of stem, and, 

 what is still worse, it may have no proper thickness and induration of 

 bark to protect the sap-vessels. We shall further suppose, that he has 

 only cursorily perused the foregoing pages ; and without altogether 

 denying the correctness of the principles laid down, (because no man, 

 attentively viewing natural causes and effects, can deny them,) he con- 

 siders this as a pretty fair experiment of the efficacy of the preservative 

 system. 



What, then, happens 1 The roots being not extensive, and the stem 

 slender, it is soon discovered, that without propping the tree cannot 

 stand. This is thought very strange, indeed, in the new system, which 



