470 



NOTES AND ILLTJSTEATIONS. 



agriculture. The breeding and feeding of stock, as intimately connected 

 with it, have also practically engaged their attention, and called forth 

 their assiduity. Who knows, but that trees might next become as 

 favourite an object with the higher orders, were the tide of fashion to 

 set in that way ? Persons of wealth and property, if they really studied 

 the subject, would then find that, in judging of their woods, the medium 

 of their gardeners was no longer wanted ; and instead of borrowing 

 from that class of men antiquated prejudices and popular errors, they 

 would be enabled to give instructions to them, practical and scientific, 

 obtained from sources which are beyond their reach. "With such in- 

 structors, and under such patrons, the art of planting would speedily 

 improve, and skill would in time derive lessons from experience. The 

 age of the Millers and the Boutchers would ere long return, and, with it, 

 knowledge presiding over arboricultural labour. The profession of the 

 nurseryman, in such a case, could not fail to rise from the level of an 

 ordinary trade to the rank of a liberal study. Men of intelligence and 

 information would soon engage in it, as a field not unworthy of their 

 talents, where fame, as well as wealth, would be sure to remunerate 

 useful exertion. 



I observed in the text, that this subject might deserve a separate 

 essay ; and here is, in fact, a sort of disquisition not necessarily con- 

 nected with the transplanting art. I do not know, important as it is, 

 whether it will do any good ; but I will give it its chance with a dis- 

 cerning public. 



