252 TREATISE 



more hardy. If this is the cafe, it appears to me no lefs ridi- 

 culous to affert, a young tender plant fliould be as hardy, juft 

 taken from a warm feed-bed, and immediately expofed to a bleak 

 fituation, and cold uncultivated foil, as that an infant from the 

 breaft fliould be able to bear the inclemency of the feafons, and 

 live and thrive with coarfer food, and lefs flicker, than a child 

 virho has been properly nouriflied for fome confiderable time, 

 and inured by degrees to various changes.. 



The analogy between the animal and vegetable creation, 

 which in many circumfl^nces are very intimate, is not too far 

 llretched in the prefent comparifon, nor is what I have advanced' 

 a fpeculative notion ; but to exemplify it, I fliall mention the 

 following experiments to that effedt, and which I have repeatedly 

 tried : 



I HAVE fown the feeds of Foreft Trees on the poorefl: ground, 

 planted feedlings, and fl:rong well-nurfed trees, from five to ten feet 

 high, on the fame ground, and at the fame time, where the old 

 well- cultivated plants^ have frequently made goodly trees, when 

 the feedlings have periflied, and, from the fl:eriiity and coldnefs of 

 the foil, the feeds have not fo much as vegetated. In fliort, the 

 mouths of feedlings are not fo well fitted as larger plants, to 

 draw fufficient nourifliment from crude, rank, and uncultivated 

 foils ; and as I have truly found what is here faid in many in- 

 ftances to be the cafe, I am obliged to believe, that the general 

 practice of planting feedlings in poor, and larger trees in good 

 land, fliould be quite reverfed ; but ftill attending to this mofl; 

 eflentiai and indifpenfible circumfl:ance, that the large plants have 

 been removed as direded, and othexways properly cultivated. 



