Gentlemen whose natural taste, reading, and observation enable them to form just ideas of rural embellishment; but where shall we find the Nurseryman who is capable of striking out the great design, or the Gentleman equal to the management of every tree and shrub he may wish to assemble in his collection? To proceed one step farther, where is the Gentleman, or the Nurseryman, who is sufficiently conversant in the training of Woodlands, Hedges, and the more useful Plantations? In fine, where shall we look for the man who in the same person unites the Nurseryman, the Woodman, the Ornamentalist, and the Author? We know no such man : the reader, therefore, must not be disappointed when he finds, that, in treating of exotic trees and shrubs, the works of preceding writers have been made use of,

Cook is our first writer on Planting; nevertheless EVELYN has been styled the Father of Planting in England. It is probable that, in the early part of life, EVELYN was a practical planter, upon his estate at Wotton in Surrey; but his book was written in the

wane of life, at Greenwich, during a long and painful fit of the gout. His Sylva contains many practical rules, valuable, no doubt, in his day, but now superseded by modern practice; and may be said to lie buried in a farrago of traditional tales, and learned digressions, suited to the age he lived in*. MILLER at length arose among a group of minor Planters; and after him the indefatigable HANBURY, whose immense labours are in a manner lost to the Public.

Cook and EVELYN treated professedly of FOREST TREES, MILLER and HANBURY include ORNAMENTALS; but their works, which are voluminous and expensive, also include kitchen gardening, flower gardening, the management of greenhouses, stoves, &c. &c. the propagation of trees and shrubs, adapted to the open air of this climate, forming only a small portion of their respective publications.

MILLER and HANBURY, however, are the only writers who could afford us the required

The first Edition was printed in 1664.

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assistance; and we were led to a choice of the latter, as our chief authority, by three principal motives: -HANBURY wrote since MILLER, and, having made ample use of Mr. M.'s book, his work contains, in effect, the experience of both writers: MILLER is in the hands of most Gentlemen; HANBURY is known to few; his book, either through a want of method, a want of language, or through an ill judged plan of publishing on his own account, has never sold: and lastly, MILLER'S botanical arrangement is become obsolete; HANBURY'S is agreeable to the Linnean system.

SINCE MR. HANBURY's death, the Public have been favored with a new and sumptuous edition of EVELYN'S Sylva; with notes by Dr. HUNTER of York, consisting of botanical descriptions, and the modern propagation of such trees as EVELYN has treated of. These notes, however, contain little new information; the descriptions being principally copied from MILLER, and the practical directions from HANBURY,

LEST Unacknowledged assistance, or assistance acknowledged indirectly, should be laid to our charge, it is thought proper to particularize, in this place, the several parts of this publication, which are written, from those which are copied.

THE INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSES, Containing the MANUAL OPERATIONS, of Planting, and the OUTLINE of the LINNEAN SYSTEM, are, as rudiments, entirely new; excepting the quotations from Linneus's work, which quotations are extracted from the Lichfield Translation of The Systema Vegetabilium of that great man.

THE ALPHABET OF PLANTS, so far as it relates to TIMBER TREES, and other Native PLANTS, as well as to some of the more USEFUL EXOTICS, is either wholly our own, or contains such additions, as have resulted from our own observation and experience: so far as it relates to ORNAMENTAL EXOTICS, it is entirely HANBURY'S; excepting the quotations which are marked, and excepting the GENERAL ARRANGEMENT, which is

entirely new. HANBURY has not less than six distinct classes for the plants here treated of, namely, deciduous Forest Trees, Aquatics, evergreen Forest Trees, deciduous Trees proper for ornament and shade, evergreen Trees proper for ornament and shade, and hardy climbing Plants. The first three classes are without any subordinate arrangement; in the last three the plants are arranged alphabetically, agreeable to their genera. This want of simplicity in the arrangement renders the work extremely heavy, and irksome to refer to; and is productive of much unnecessary repetition, or of tiresome references, from one part of his unwieldy work to another. His botanical synonyms we have wholly thrown aside, as being burthensome, yet uninstructive; and in their place, we have annexed to each Species the trivial or specific name of LINNEUS; which, in one word, identifies the plant, with a greater degree of certainty, than a volume of Synonyma. Other retrenchments, and a multiplicity of corrections, have taken place : however, where practical knowledge appears to arise incidentally out of our author's