194 TREATISE on 



With refped to cuttings of tliefe, and all other trees, I muft 

 here take notice of one circumftance I have never read in any 

 author, or ever feen attended to in practice, but which is of the 

 higheft importance in the culture of every plant raifed from 

 them ; and that is, indifcriminately taking all branches of a 

 proper age and fize, without confidering the manner and difpo- • 

 fition of their growth : But nothing is more certain, than that 

 a clean perpendicular flioot will produce a ftraight handfome 

 plant, an ill-formed bruihy one continue its original likenefs, 

 and thofe that fpread and hang over in a horizontal way, will 

 ever after continue to grow in that diredlion. I have planted per- 

 haps as great a number of cuttings, and of as many various 

 kinds, as any man of my age has done ; and after having confider'd 

 what I thought was the order of nature, I determined to try this 

 experiment, and, for a fucceffion of years, planted the three dif- 

 ferent kinds mentioned in feparate lines, when, after many years 

 growth, the diftin(5lion was as perceptible in the trees, as in the 

 branches hanging on their mothers ; fo that what the poet fays 



of education " Juft as the twig is bent, the trees inclin'd.'* 



may here be applied, and is at lead as vifible in trees as men. 

 This leads me to obferve, that both authors and gardeners in 

 general make diftindlion, and give feedling-plants of all kinds 

 a great preference to cuttings. That many plants are better be- 

 ing raifed from feeds than propagated in any other manner, I 

 know experimentally to be true ; but that feveral kinds, which 

 root freely, are little, if any thing inferior, when the cuttings are 

 properly chofen, I alfo know ; and the general obfervation made 

 to their difadvantage, is owing to overlooking their quality at cut- 

 ting them. Is it n Jt ftrange then, that we have not been univer- 

 fally warned to attend to a circumftance fo feemingly confiftent 

 with reafon and nature ? But I return to the further culture of 

 the plants. 



