50 



THE PKACTICAL GARDENER. 



of Argyle, and Athol, Earls of Haddington, Bute, Loudon, &c., 

 and latterly from almost every country gentleman both in 

 England and Scotland, that planting has now attained a posi- 

 tion amongst the liberal sciences, that renders it a pleasing, 

 profitable, and honourable employment to the great, and a 

 source fraught with considerable advantages to the poor, whose 

 state is ameliorated by the employment it affords, and the 

 means of atibrdin*r not only comfortable dwellings, but also 

 abundance of fuel, which is sufHciently a})j)reciated in those 

 countries, where coal is either dear or not to be obtained. 

 The ci\vct which planting has in the improvement of our climate 

 is sufHciently obvious to the most superficial observer, and the 

 improvement of the general appearance of the surface, in a 

 picturesque point of view, cannot but awaken pleasing asso- 

 ciations in the mind of every man, who is not, like the great 

 lexicographer, predetermined to hate every thing vegetable, 

 and who can travel from Dan to Bersheba without once seeing 

 beauty in a single tree. 



Agriculture is improved by the shelter afforded by plan- 

 tations both to the cattle and grain crops, and evidently derives 

 much assistance from the facility which they aflbrd of sub- 

 dividing property and fields. Architecture, both civil and 

 military, has never to dread a want of materials, while that 

 spirit is fostered and promulgated ; but a neglect of it would 

 be fatal to both, and the cflccts of a decay in our maritime power, 

 would, in all probability, end in the subjugation of our free- 

 dom as a great and free people, and probably the blotting 

 out of our name as the greatest of all nations, 



FORMATION OF A FORtST-TREE NURSERY. 



Proprietors who intend to improve their estates by planting, 

 should, and many have proved the truth of the assertion, 

 rear their own timber-trees from seeds, upon their own pro- 

 perty, if their intention be to plant extensively, not only as an 

 object of econoiliy, but also as a matter of convenience. This 

 doctrine has met with the most strenuous opposition, and many 

 discouraging obstacles have been held out to those who pur- 

 posed to adopt it. But it should be remembered that that op- 



