PREFACE. 



xi 



during which period, there is not any material difference in the 

 prices of the moft ufeful capital plants. They are generally an 

 honeft, fenfible, induflrious fet of men, and their emulation is of 

 a virtuous kind, tending to public utility, as it confifts in who 

 fhall raife the beft, not the cheapeft trees, — fenfible that thefe 

 improperly cultivated are dear of any price, and that the great- 

 eft difference of prices is an inconfiderable circumftance, even 

 to a poor man, compared to the confequences that mufl enfue 

 from their having been of a good or ill quality. 



•It gives me the moft fenfible pain to be under the necefhty of 

 laying any thing that has the appearance of fevcrity or ill na- 

 ture, as I hold in the greateft abhorrence and deteftation, every 

 principle tending to traduce an honeft well-meaning man. I have 

 the comfort however to think, that none fuch will be offended 

 with what I have faid in the prefent cafe ; but be that as it may, 

 I am certainly bound, by all the ties of truth, and gratitude to 

 my country, to detedl whatever errors I difcover on a fubjedl 

 that is the bafis of its greateft improvements, and w^hich not at- 

 tended to, but the prefent defects in the culture of trees and 

 hedge-plants allowed to proceed, muft terminate in at leaft great- 

 ly retarding that cultivation our farms and gardens would other- 

 ways admit of. 



I ESTEEM every honeft ju^dicious nurferyman in the kingdom, 

 and moft heartily wifli their number incr^afed. To many of them 

 I have reprefented the ill confequences that muft naturally arife 

 from not beftowing proper culture on their plants : The common 

 return is, that others felling their crowded, half-fuffocated ones, 

 at a price below what they can afford to raife them for at proper 



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