In the first place, with respect to nurserymen, the knowledge of all the best methods of propagation is now so generally diffused, and thereby rendered so easy, that every gentleman's gardener, having once obtained a new plant, propagates it for himself, his neighbours, and his master's friends. This reduces the business of the nurseryman, as far as new plants are concerned, to the profits which he may make during the first three or four years after the new plant is come into his possession. Let a new plant once find its way into twenty or thirty private collections, and unless it is one of extraordinary popularity, such as the pelargonium, the camellia, and a few others, the nurseryman may discard it for ever from his stock. For fruit trees there will always be a demand; because, as long as houses are built or repaired, gardens will continue to be made or altered: but the propagation of fruit trees is now become so general, that it affords very little profit, except to nurserymen in the country, who pay low rents for their land. The rage for forest planting, which prevailed some years ago, when corn and timber were at war prices, and gentlemen consequently full of money, has subsided; and hence the millions of seedling larches, and of Scotch pines, which are raised in the nurseries in Aberdeenshire, at Perth, and at Kilmarnock, are either burned on the spot, or sold at little more than sixpence a thousand. Well dried, and made into small bundles, these seedlings would bring more money in London for the purpose of lighting fires. In short, capital employed in the nursery business returns at present perhaps less than capital employed in any other trade. It once returned more, but the reason why it did so no longer exists; viz. the enjoyment of a monopoly by the nurserymen in the article of skilful propagation of plants. That monopoly is now gone for ever, as other monopolies have gone, and as all will go.
