Chapter III: Part IV: Notices of Authors Who Treat of Arboriculture

Utility of a general review of these authors, . . . 138

I.—FORESTER’S GUIDE, BY MR MONTEATH, . . . 140

Advantage of converting our coppice oak into forest, and of saving
our home oak in time of peace, . . . 140

Plan, by Mr Monteath, of preparing peat soils for planting, . . . 142

————— of covering bare rocky ground with timber, . . . 143

————— of raising oak-forest or copse by layers, . . . 144

Influence of our vernal eastern breeze on vegetation, . . . 146

Cause why the trees of narrow belts seldom grow to large timber,
. . . 148

Observations on pruning and thinning, . . . 150

Observations on the age at which the valuable part of oak bark is
thickest, . . . 154

Observations on the prevention of dry-rot, . . . 157

II.—NICOL’S PLANTER’S CALENDAR, . . . 163

Different influence of transplanting on herbaceous and woody
vegetables, . . . 164

Cutting the roots close in, injurious to some trees and not to
others, . . . 165

Mr Sang’s plan of raising forest from the seed _in situ_, . . . 167

Reasons which render the planting of young trees preferable to
sowing _in situ_, . . . 168

Mr Sang’s directions for nursery practice; sowing the different
kinds of forest trees in the seed-bed; removing the seedlings to the
nursery line, and from thence to the field, . . . 170

Remarks on transplanting, . . . 178

III.—BILLINGTON ON PLANTING, . . . 181

An account of the management of the Royal Forests, . . . ib.

Reasons why government should rather purchase than raise timber, and
that they should sell off the Royal Forests, . . . 182

The Billingtonian system of pruning, . . . 185

Remarks on planting soils not easily permeable by water, . . . 187

Mr Billington’s directions for planting these soils, . . . 188

————— ————— for clearing away weeds, and for cutting in or
pruning the points of the branches, . . . 189

IV.—FORSYTH ON FRUIT AND FOREST TREES, . . . 192

Mr Forsyth’s surgery of trees, and the value of his
composition-salve, . . . ib.

Manner in which a tree can be transformed from disease and
rottenness to health and soundness, . . . 193

V.—MR WITHERS, . . . 198

Discomfiture of our Scottish Knights by Mr Withers, . . . ib.

Account of a number of facts and experiments by the writer, on
the comparative strength of quick and slow grown timber—on the
influence of circumstance and age in modifying the quality of the
timber—on the difference in the quality of different varieties of
the same species, and of different parts of the same tree, . . . 199

Oak timber, moderately fast grown, so that it may be of sufficient
size, and still retain the toughness of youth, best suited for naval
use, . . . 214

Mr Withers, his literary friends and Sir Henry Steuart equally
imperfectly acquainted with the subject in dispute between them,
. . . 215

The Withers’ system neither necessary nor economically suited for
the greater part of Scotland, . . . 217

Fallacy of experiments on the strength of timber, from not taking
into account the difference of tension of the different annual
layers, and their position, whether flat, perpendicular, &c.,
. . . 221

VI.—STEUART’S PLANTER’S GUIDE AND SIR WALTER SCOTT’S CRITIQUE, . . . 226

Importance of whatever may serve to amuse the second childhood of
the wealthy, . . . 227

The subject—the art of moving about large trees in general, merely
a pandering to our wilfulness and impatience, . . . 227

Intolerable dulness of the park and smooth lawn, . . . 228

Delightful sympathies with the objects and varied scenery of our
_peopled_ subalpine country, . . . 229

Sir Walter Scott’s curious effort to give consequence to the art of
moving about large trees, . . . 231

Paroxysm of admiration of Sir Walter, at Sir Henry’s discoveries,
with his hyperbolic figures of comparison, . . . 233

Account of the writer’s practice in moving trees of considerable
size, . . . 235

Taste of Sir Walter Scott for “home-keeping squires,” practisers of
the Allanton system, . . . 245

What a British gentleman should be, . . . 246

The Allanton practice described, . . . 249

Quotation from Sir Henry Steuart’s volume, in which the philosophy
of his practice is described, . . . 254

Summary of Sir Henry’s discoveries, . . . 264

Consideration of the accuracy of some of Sir Henry’s assertions
regarding the desiccated epidermis of trees, and the elongation of
the shoots of plants, . . . 265

Sir Henry’s assertion that quick-grown timber is inferior to
slow-grown, and that culture necessarily renders it softer, less
solid, and less durable, not correct, . . . 282

The present climate of Scotland, and of the Orkneys and Shetlands,
inferior to a former, . . . 287

That this may have been owing to these islands having once been a
portion of the continent, . . . 288

The recent advance and recession of the German Ocean, render a
former junction with the continent not improbable, . . . 289

Mr Loudon’s statement, of the effect produced by pruning on the
quality and quantity of the timber, that trees produce the best
timber in their natural locality, not supported by facts, . . . 305

The apparent use of the infinite seedling varieties of plants,
. . . 307

VII.—CRUICKSHANK’S PRACTICAL PLANTER, . . . 309

Advantages of laying ground under timber, stated rather too high by
Mr Cruickshank, . . . ib.

Mr Cruickshank’s account of the superior fertilizing influence of
forest upon the soil, . . . 310

Facts which in many cases lead to an opposite conclusion, . . . 316

An examination into the causes which promote or retard the
formation, or which tend to dissipate the earth’s covering of
vegetable mould, . . . 316

Account of an uncommon system of fallowing once practised in the
Carse of Gowrie, . . . 324

High manuring quality of old clay walls, . . . 325

Formation of nitre the probable cause of the fertilizing quality of
these walls, . . . ib.

The fertilizing influence of summer fallow may in part be owing to
the formation of nitre and other salts, . . . ib.

That there is a deficiency of these salts in some places of the
world, and an excess in others, . . . 326

Ignorance of Mr Cruickshank regarding the location of certain kinds
of trees, . . . 327

Mr Cruickshank’s reprehension of the practice of covering fir seeds
half an inch deep in England, and of _forcing_ suitable earth
for nurseries where awanting, . . . 330

Best method of transplanting seedlings in the nursery row, . . . 331

Quotation worthy the attention of planters, . . . ib.

Error of authors on the location of trees, in inculcating a
determinate character of soil as generally necessary for each kind
of tree, . . . 334

Further errors of Mr Cruickshank on the location of trees, . . . 335

Adaptation of Scots fir to moist soils, even to peat-moss, . . . 338

An account by Mr Cruickshank of the most economical and successful
mode of planting moors and bleak mountains, . . . 340

Method of planting by the flat dibble or single notch, . . . 343

————— ————— by the double notch or cross-slitting, . . . 344

Expense and comparative merits of each, . . . 345

These methods of planting best adapted for a sterile country, where
the weeds are small, . . . 346

Practice by the writer of cultivating young plantation by the
plough, suited for rich soil, . . . 347

Best season for planting moist soils, . . . 348

Manner in which frost throws up the young plant from the soil,
. . . 349

Mr Cruickshank’s plan of raising oak forest _in situ_ from the seed,
. . . 351

That although the bare plan given by our author, of sowing _in
situ_, under the shelter of nurses, is good, his directions for
executing it are not very judicious, . . . 352

Advantages of this plan which Mr Cruickshank has not noticed,
. . . 353

That the power of ripening seed is not increased by shelter in
proportion to the power of growing, . . . 356

That the line of seed ripening, and not the line of growing,
regulates the natural distribution of plants in respect to climate,
. . . 357

That oaks, under this plan of sowing _in situ_ under shelter, can be
extended to a climate inferior to the natural, . . . ib.

That oaks grown in the low country, and best climate of Scotland,
appear not to ripen the seed sufficiently. Thence the probability
that oak now would not even keep its present locality in the low
country of Scotland, although it may “be taught to rise in our”
alpine country, . . . 358