208 



LETTERS ON THEES. 



brought it to light, had no idea of the use that has 

 within your own recollection been made of itj in 

 the all but instantaneous interchange of thought be- 

 tween persons living many thousand miles apart, or 

 that will yet be made of it when the electric telegraph 

 overspreads the globe. The discovery of the laws of 

 latent caloric did not at once lead to the application of 

 steam as a moving power. 



4. In thus referring, therefore, to the uses of the 

 theory, it is not in the hope or expectation of turning 

 it to practical account myself, but rather with the 

 view of showing you that I neither overlook Lord 

 Bacon's maxim, nor feel mdifferent as to the way in 

 which the Author of Waverley's friend Jbcfc" may 

 best carry out the advice given him, and so make two 

 trees grow where only one grew before. 



5. All that at present occurs to me on the subject 

 may be comprised in one or two observations, which, 

 moreover, I desire to submit less in the way of confi- 

 dent assertion than of " guesses at truth." 



6. And, first, it seems clear from the view taken of 

 the relation to the woody tissue, of the plants emana- 

 ting from the buds, that, as the quantity of that tissue 

 is always proportioned to the number of the plants, 

 so caution should be exercised in the pruning of 

 trees, — and precaution taken so to plant them in the 

 first instance, and so to weed them afterwards, as to 

 give the side plants air and room to grow, as they 



