INTRODUCTION.

9

] ia ve an opportunity of correctly ascertaining the names of suchas they already possess, but of supplying themselves with cuttingsor plants of such sorts as they may liot have in cultivation. Thepurchasers of trees, by always using the nomenclature of theArboretum Britannicum, and being able to refer from it to theliving specimens frora which our engravings were taken, will atonce insure certainty as to the kinds they obtain; and stimulate

the nurserymen to accuracy, in

regard

to the names of those

plants which they possess and propagate, and to the cultivationof a greater number of species and varieties. After the pub-lication of our Work, it will be the fault of the nurserymanalone, if his nursery do not contain plants of ali the species andvarieties which we have figured and described.

Many persons, when recommended to piant, reply: “ Of whatuse is it to piant at my age? I can never hope to live to seemy plants become trees.” This sort of answer does not, at firstsight, appear surprising, if we suppose it to come from a personofsixty or seventy years of age; but we often hear it even frommen of thirty or forty. In either case, such an answer is theresuit of a vulgar error, founded on mistaken and prejudicednolions. We shall prove its incorrectness by inatters of fact.Ia the year 1830, there were many sorts of trees in the arbo-retum of Messrs. Loddiges which had been planted exactly tenyears, and each of which exceeded 30 ft. in height. Most ofthese trees have since been cut down for want of room; but wehave the names and the measurement of the whole of them.There are, also, at the present time (December, .1834), manytrees in the arboretum of the London Horticultural Society’sGarden at Chiswick, which have been only ten years planted,and which are between 30 ft. and 40 ft. in height. Why, then,should any one, even of seventy years of age, assign as a reasonfor declining planting, that he cannot hope to live to see hisplants become trees? A tree 30 ft. high, practically speaking,will elfect all the general purposes for which trees are planted:it will afford shelter and shade; display individual beauty andcharacter ; and confer expression on landscape scenery.

There is one subject which we shall occasionally touch on, inthe history of particular species, and also in taking a generalview of the trees of each genus, or of each natural order; andthat is, the improvement which many species are probably sus-ceptible of by cross-fecundation with other species nearly allied tothem, or by procuring new varieties through the selection of re-raarkable individuals from seedlings raised in the common way.We shall also bear in rnind the manner in which curious varietiesa re procured by the selection of shoots which present thoseanomalous appearances which gardeners call sports, and which,' v hen propagated by grafting, continue to prescrve their pecu-'auties. It should never be forgotten by cultivators, that all