420 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



professes to discard all such unsightlj^ appliances. We will next sup- 

 pose, that the props are applied with due diligence and success for two 

 or three years ; and meanwhile, that the roots and fibres, being com- 

 paratively undisturbed, extend under ground for five or six years more. 

 As to the branches, few or none having decayed in the beginning, the 

 tree, by the second year, has probably carried a good leaf, but has made 

 no shoots of any sort. 



Now this tree, as it is not in possession of all the protecting pro- 

 perties, can develop those which it possesses only in an inferior degree, 

 therefore " its progress must be retarded (as the text has it) until the 

 deficiency be made up." If it chance to be in a situation relatively 

 sheltered, and in a favourable soil, it will, after five or six years more 

 in this climate, begin to obtain the proper stoutness of stem, and thick- 

 ness of bark, which it should have had in the beginning : but if the 

 exposure be great, whatever be the soil, ten or twelve years still may 

 elapse ere " the deficiency be made up." Thus, in the last mentioned 

 case, (which is by far the more common of the two,) after about eighteen 

 or twenty years, the tree, having struggled under the unnatural circum- 

 stances of cold and exposure to generate provisions which warmth and 

 shelter, in the previous plantation, or transplanting nursery, would 

 have speedily conferred on it, at length surmounts the evils incident to 

 injudicious selection, and begins to shoot forth with proper vigour. 

 Such at least is its progress in the climate of Scotland. 



This is no exaggerated picture, but a plain statement of facts, such 

 as always occur when the laws of nature are disregarded, and the 

 development of the properties she confers are checked in their progress. 

 The above illustration of the doctrine set forth in the text, that " we 

 must wait till the deficiency be made up," is given on the supposition 

 that the tree has tolerable roots and branches, but is without the other 

 prerequisites. But on a supposition that the tree possessed the other 

 protecting properties, and that roots or branches were deficient, there 

 would be a corresponding result ; and no vigorous progress could in the 

 same way be expected from the plant, until the deficiency were made 

 np in like manner. 



