468 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



may be curious to add, that one company alone in tliat city, besides 

 supplying a great part of Scotland with, seeds and nursery plants, 

 exports yearly some millions of the latter, for the use of the west and 

 south-west of England, as well as Wales.* 



The necessary result of such a state of things requires little descrip- 

 tion and no comment. From the unwholesome atmosphere of a per- 

 nicious hot-bed, these tender plants, when suddenly transferred to com- 

 mons and mountains, sicken and decay. Without any portion of the 

 vigour inherent in their species, they have all the delicacy and weakness 

 derived from a forced and adventitious mode of culture. If they survive 

 the change, they languish for years, ere they acquire strength or con- 

 stitution suited to their new situation. Thus, the progress of wood, 

 which is slow to a proverb, is rendered slower still, and more uncertain, 

 by such severe and unnatural treatment. If we add to this, the imper- 

 fect acquaintance possessed in general by planters themselves with the 

 nature and properties of the grand staple of all woods, the Oak, and the 

 proper adaptation of its different species to different situations and 

 climates, we have a true, but not a very flattering picture of the value 

 of our plantations to posterity. 



In making this statement, which a regard for truth compels me to 

 make, I need scarcely repeat what has been already stated, that no 

 reflection can possibly be intended by it on the nurserymen of Scotland, 

 either aggregately or individually. It is true they are unhappily 

 situated, under the influence of circumstances which they cannot easily 

 control, and of habits which they have no direct temptation to relin- 

 quish. Yet respectable and enterprising as they unquestionably are in 

 their present vocation, it strikes me with wonder, that while some 

 portion of the most eminent of them see and lament the extensive evils, 

 of which I have given but a faint outline, not a man has been found of 

 sufficient energy and vigour of character to attemj)t to place the trade 

 upon a better footing. 



When we consider that the nurseryman may in some sort be said to 

 cater for the planter, and that the planter plants, not for himself only, 



* It appears that our English neighbours, as a sort of reciprocation of 

 courtesy, prefer su.ndry articles of our manufacture, intellectual and artificial, 

 to their own. Of the former sort, novels, for example, and delineations of Hfe and 

 manners, and muslins, and nursery plants, are supposed to be produced no 

 where so well as in Scotland ; from which the annual export, in all the branches, 

 is to an enormous extent, and large fortunes in consequence have been made 

 in them. One gentleman, in the nursery department, is said to have realised 

 above £80,000, which is pretty well for Edinburgh ; and others, no doubt, have 

 succeeded in proportion. 



