PREFACE 



and that books intended to be used by growers and landowners are found only in the 

 libraries of aristocrats and wealthy individuals. I wanted to avoid this criticism and still 

 provide detailed individual descriptions for each species and a set of figures that are 



.111.1 ^.IKlulli 'ICil 



This work should be suitable for those who, by their position or inclination, are 

 engaged in planting and will say, as did the octogenarian de Lafontaine: 



Let us plant. 



Our descendants will be in our debt for the shade. 



For thirty years egotism and greed have marked the destruction of our ancient 

 forests. It's time that well-intentioned people work to correct this fault and to put off the 

 inevitable moment, unfortunately not far off, when we will have to import all our wood 

 needed for construction and shipbuilding. 



[Translator's Note: The following lengthy introduction to this book was written by Andre 

 Thouin, 1747-1824. (The identical introduction also appears at the beginning of Jaume 

 Saint-Hilaire's Traite des Arbrisseaux et des Arbustes.) Thouin was a distinguished 

 French botanist and a pupil of Bernard de Jussieu. At age 17 he succeeded his father as 

 chief gardener at the King's Garden in Paris (now the Jardin des Plant es) and enlarged it 

 considerably. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences and of the institut de 

 France and professor and administrator of the Museum of Natural History in 1793, A 

 street in Paris is named after him. His introduction is dated August 18, 1824, barely two 

 months before his death on October 27. 



Thouin's introduction stresses the need for conservation and for the replacement 

 of trees and woodlands to compensate for their destruction by the expanding population 

 in France. It is a commentary on and a practical guide to planting and growing trees and 

 shrubs. Though written in 1824, it seems remarkably contemporary in its concern for 

 conservation and for the environment. It's notable that careful forest management already 

 had begun in Europe long before it had in the United States.] 



