It is pleasing to reflect that the great and good of all ages have been patrons of arboriculture. One redeeming feature of the monkish orders was their charity to the poor wayfarer: another, and of which the vestiges are yet apparent in the countries where those societies flourished, was their love of gardens and orchards. Through these sometimes ascetic, now forgotten men, there is little doubt that much of the improvement of our standard orchard fruits, such at least as it existed a century ago, originated and was preserved, in a state of society little adapted to the development of science. The largest fruit trees the writer ever beheld, colossal pear and venerable apple trees, grow beneath the walls of the City of Chester, England, in what was once a part of the gardens attached to the Convent of St. John of Jerusalem. At Coutances in Normandy, an ancient archiepiscopal see, surrounded by grey massy walls, covered with the lichens of ages, which line a portion of the principal street, is an orchard of antiquated pear and apple trees, which look like denizens of a medieval forest.

And at Nantes, on the rich alluvion of the yellow Loire, in the grounds of the Madeleines, and on the islands of the Sevre, are heavy clumps of large old trees, pear and apple, medlar and chestnuts, many of which probably budded and shed their leaves under the rule of Henri Quatre.

To descend to a later date - passing the period when Shakspeare planted his mulberry and avenue of limes, to the time when the magnificent gardens of Chats-worth and Trentham were planned and planted by their lordly owners, we find the great English moralist advocating the cause of Pomona and Sylva; and may we not pardon somewhat of his bearish demeanor and dogmatic aristocracy for the help that he has rendered ? There is a well-known and ludicrous conclusion to his first piece of advice upon the subject, but which does not by any means detract from the value of the recommendation. Dr. William Maxwell says, Dr. Johnson "advises me, if possible, to have a good orchard. He knew, he said, a clergyman of small income, who brought up a family very respectably, which he chiefly fed with apple dumplings".

Johnson gave great offence to the Scotch by his animadversions on the want of woodland in that part of Britain, and we know from Lord Hailes and Sir Alexander Dick, that these very strictures were the primum mobile of the extensive system of planting those sterile lands which have been in operation for the last sixty or eighty years. His Fidus Achates, Boswell, tells us in his precise way, under date of 24th Sept. 1777, "He recommended me to plant a considerable part of a large moorish (moorland ?) farm which I had purchased, and he made several calculations of the expense and profit. * * * * He pressed upon me the importance of planting at the first in a very efficient manner, quoting the saying, 'In bello non licet bis errare,' and adding, this is equally true in planting".

It would perhaps be well for the future of Northern Illinois if some more polished Johnson of our own day and generation, would rake down on our farmers and speculators in land in a manner to be felt. They have, indeed, recently taken the initiative in planting in a degree, on the fence lines, and in front of city lots; but in most instances, the "subjects," trees I cannot call them, had better have been allowed to dwindle out a pinched existence in the swamps from whence they were dug. A poetical imagination on viewing a row of trees of this description, planted in unbroken prairie, in holes eighteen inches in diameter, and well "boot-heeled" in, would, I opine, be strongly reminded of Falstaff's army. Of course not one half of such trees so treated can ever be expected to live, and those which do survive only remain to furnish the idea of a sapling-hospital.

Planting #1

The late Sir Watkin Williams.Wynn planted, from 1815 to 1820, upon mountainous lands in the vicinity of Llangollen, situated from 1,200 to 1,400 feet above the level of the sea, 80,000 oaks, 63,000 Spanish chestnuts, 102,000 spruce firs, 110,000 Scotch firs, 90,000 larches, 30,000. wych elms, 35,000. mountain elms, 80,000 ash, and 40,000 sycamores.

Planting #2

The early portion of the month will be found a good season for removing evergreens north of this. There is too little attention paid to preserving the roots during removal. To see the roots of trees exposed for hours to a hot sun and drying winds, is a painful sight. Trees so treated ought to die. I lately visited a pleasure plantation, and observing that all the trees were remarkably straight-stemmed, was told that all crooked trees will straighten themselves by simply running down a slit in the bark, with a knife, on the side towards which the tree is desired to come.