of our country for the support of that navy which is to protect it. Nor need I urge to the man of taste, and the lover of landscape beauty, what a useful help it may afford to the delightful modern art of ornamental horticulture. APPENDIX. SIR, N° I. Land Revenue Office, April 17, 1789. BEING informed that you have discovered a method of curing defects in growing trees of all ages, which may have sustained damage from any cause whatever, we wish to be favoured by you with an answer to the following questions, relative to injuries done to the bark of oak-trees, and the means of preventing defects in the timber arising from that cause, viz. 1. Supposing a piece of bark of five or fix inches square to be cut from the fide of an oak-tree of any fize, from twenty feet to one load or more, fo as to lay the wood bare, and that letters or figures were burnt, or stamped with fharp instruments, into folid wood, where the bark was so taken off, and the tree left in that state so long as it should continue standing, what effect do you think would be produced by fuch process upon the body of the tree; whether it would continue to grow, and increase in size in the part from which the bark was taken; or whether any, and what detriment would enfue from it to the timber, if no means were used to prevent it; and whether fuch detriment, if any, would extend further than the limits of the part deprived of its bark? 2. If you should be of opinion that oak-trees would fuftain any material detriment, or become in any degree defective, from the cause above ftated, do you know any means by which fuch detriment may be effectually prevented, in trees which have remained in that ftate from four, five, or fix months to a year; fo as to restore the bark, and prevent the trees from becoming defective, and unfit for the use of the navy? 3. If you should be able to fuggeft a complete remedy for fuch defects, and if the remedy would be effected by means peculiar to yourself, and unknown to others, we wish to know if you would be willing to undertake to apply it, or fuperintend or direct the application of it by perfons properly inftructed by yourself, to any number of trees that might require it in any of the royal forests ? 4. In cafe there should be occafion to apply fuch a remedy to a very confiderable number of trees in the ftate above described, we wish to know, as nearly as poffible, what expence the application would be attended with, by the hundred, or thousand, or any given number of trees, including labour, materials, and every incidental expence. We shall be glad to receive an answer to these enquiries with all convenient fpeed, and are, Sir, Your most obedient Servants, Mr. Forfyth. JOHN CALL. JOHN FORDYCE.. |