Arboriculture. 
13 
have devoted that attention which the importance of the subject would 
seem to demand I am not sanguine enough to expect that those to 
whom these observations apply will acquiesce in tlie justice of them; on 
the contrary, I am well aware that not only gardeners, and stewards, 
but even woodmen, and hedge-carpenters, would consider themselves 
insulted, were it but intimated that a doubt could be entertained of 
their competency to conduct operations, which in their opinion, required 
little beside a certain degree of strength for performing them; but which, 
those who have directed their attention to the study, are convinced can 
only be acquired by years of close observation and experience. And 
what is the result of this lack of information on a subject which ranks 
next, in point of importance, to agriculture ? The wTiter of this article, 
happens to know something of the management of wooded lands, as 
practised in each portion of the United Kingdom, and he is con¬ 
vinced that the fact will bear him out, when he asserts, that on this 
important subject, wide-spread, I had almost said universal, ignorance 
prevails. 
It will readily be conceded, that the gardeners of Scotland are not 
inferior to those of the other divisions of the United Kingdom, either 
in general intelligence, or proficiency in their particular profession:— 
Yet, how do they stand with reference to the subject in question? an 
eminent modern writer on Arboriculture, and a native of Scotland, and 
therefore not liable to the imputation of prejudice, shall answer that 
enquiry. On the subject of Arboricultural knowledge in Scotland, 
Sir Henry Stewart, of Alanton, has the follomng remarkable passage. 
Unacquainted with the history, properties, and culture of trees, he 
(the Scottish landed proprietor) naturally sees with the eyes and hears 
^vith the ears of his gardener, and as the gardener, ninet}'^-nine times 
out of a hundred, knows nothing himself, it is 'the blind leading the 
blind,’ in this important branch of rural economy. Sometimes, the 
forester is the operating person, which is still more unfortunate; for he' 
is generally a mere lopper and cutter of wood:—in ordinary cases, he 
is much worse educated than the gardener, with equal pretensions and 
equal ignorance.” Such is the testimony borne by a competent wit¬ 
ness of the state of Arboricultural knowledge, in a country where, to 
use the words of Lord Kairn, "the spirit of planting has been aroused,” 
and in which, the prediction of the same excellent writer, that the 
spirit of improvement will not be arrested until it has effected happy 
results for the country, proceeds steadily to its completion. 
The neglected state of the wooded lands in England, has been tlie 
constant theme of every writer on foresting, from the days of Lauspn, 
who ^vTote in 1597, to those of Lord Melville, in 1810. ' "How 
many are the forests and woods,” says the former of these writers, 
