134 TREATISE on 



able clrciimilances in the foil or fitu.ition of the place, they 

 fhoukl live, their ihoots are poor and languid, their roots car- 

 roty and without- fibres ; in which ftate they will long continue, 

 if a fucceecling hard winter does not quite deflroy them. Many 

 gentlemen who have purchafed large quantities of firs fo raifed, 

 imported from the north of Scotland, and fold for lefs than half 

 the price any man can raife good plants for, have paid dear for 

 tlieir intended frugality, and are now too fenfible of the truth 

 of what is here-obferved. Nor is this practice confined to the 

 north of Scotland only ; for, I am forry to fay, it has defufed itfelf 

 over moft parts of the kingdom, and at laft reached the capital, 

 where feveral people have ftarted up and affumed the character 

 of nurferymen, unbred to, and unknowing in the meaneft branch 

 of gardening. Thefe gentlemen have adopted the fyftem of 

 their northern brethren, and impofed on the ignorant and un- 

 wary, by felling their fufiocated trafh, which well they may, 

 under the rate of good plants ; whence they have injured the 

 fair-dealing intelligent nurferyman, whofe heart difclaims 

 receiving money at fo great an expence as deforming, in place 

 of beautifying and inriching his country. It is hoped the na- 

 ture of the fubje6l will procure pardon for this digreffion, which 

 is far from being the effe6l of ill nature or envy, thefe invaders 

 being of a fpecies too contemptible to admit of either. Some of 

 them have already paid for their prefumption, and it is hoped 

 all of them will in due time, as, from the univerfal tafte of plant- 

 ing in this kingdom amongfl men of fortune and education, 

 they will foon become judges of the difference between good and 

 bad plants, and of courfe difcourage the ignorant and diilionefl 

 pradices of quacks and impoflors. 



