34 | Supposed Effects of Ivy upon Trees. 
landscape would be greatly improved. I could not but observe 
the contrast of places visited during the same winter. Instead of 
that melancholy scenery in parks where no Ivy is permitted to 
grow, and where each rugged and venerable oak, without its fo- 
liage, presents in winter a picture of old age with poverty and 
nakedness; the rich mantle of Ivy thrown over the trees of 
Langold and Stoneleigh gave grace and dignity to age, while it 
concealed its decrepitude. ; | eue | 
The mass of mankind look on the vegetable part of the creation 
with a view only to its producing food, or medicine, or materials 
for economical purposes, or money, which includes all the rest. 
But every pupil of the Linnzan school, if I may judge from his 
labours, and from your pursuits who are so justly at the head of 
that school, must have more exalted notions of the Creator ; and 
must be well aware that the Beauty of His works is equal to 
their vrıLıry, and that the PLEASURE of man is provided for 
as bountifully as his NECESSITIES. It is therefore, my dear sir, 
with peculiar satisfaction that I address these remarks to you, as 
the best means of insuring and exciting attention to a subject, 
which may eventually prove beneficial to the agriculturist and 
the sportsman, while it may tend to improve the beauty of our 
winter scenery : and I beg you will with this view communicate 
the. whole, or any part, of what I have written, and suppress: any | 
part, or throw it out into separate notes in any way that you 
may judge most likely to call attention to the subject, and |. 
suspend fora while the destruction of a plant, which I cannot . 
but consider as one of the most useful and ornamental works of 
the Creator. Believe me with great regard, my dear sir, | 
Yours most faithfully and cordially, >= 
H. REPTON. 
April 8, 1810. 
À Ill. An 
