576 



The Country Gentleman's Magazine 



f Iantnti0n0 mis 'g)t^tB, 



WEEPING TREES. 



WHY are those beautiful pendent trees, 

 which we call weeping trees, so 

 rarely planted about our parks and lawns? 

 Why are they banished to our graveyards and 

 cemeteries ? And why do we so seldom meet 

 with well-grown specimens anywhere? We 

 believe that it is partly owing to the proper 

 mode of treating them not being understood ; 

 partly that they are not appreciated as they 

 deserve ; that, in fact, they have fallen back 

 in public estimation from want of proper 

 selection of the kinds to be cultivated, and 

 of the fitting places in which to plant them. 

 In questioning the excellence of the present 

 mode of dealing with them, we mean no 

 reflection on the care or attention of the hor- 

 ticulturist or forester. With one exception, 

 weeping trees need little or no special treat- 

 ment. There is one point in which they do, 

 and in which we think they are badly managed 



but only one. With that exception, all that 



has to be done is to put the plants in the 

 ground, and let them grow in the same way, 

 and subject to the same rules, as should 

 regulate them in the case of ordinary forest 

 trees. Nay, they have some advantage over 

 ordinary forest trees ; for being usually in- 

 tended to serve as objects of view, they are 

 put in good situations, are well protected, 

 and isolated from the encroachments of other 

 trees, and secure of more individual attention 

 than any other tree standing mixed with a 

 multitude of others can ever expect to enjoy. 

 The point of treatment where we think they 

 are erroneously dealt with is what may be 

 called the sesthetic treatment. 



Generally speaking, we have no very de- 

 fined idea of what we would be at with them, 

 and unless we have that, our success must of 

 course be as hazy as our object. Generally 



speaking, too, so far as we have an aim, or 

 we should rather say an expectation, we ex- 

 pect two or three incongruous results when 

 the trees shall be full grown. We hope for 

 a tree of beauty, and we expect it also to 

 serve as a parasol or umbrella, as well as an 

 arbour or a summer-house — things which ap- 

 pear to us wholly incompatible. Fig. i repre- 

 sents the parasol or umbrella phase, and we 

 defy Lucifer to say that it is possible to com- 

 bine that with the idea of beauty. Next, fig. 

 2, shews the cabin or arbour phase, which is 

 even more irreconcilable with beauty than the 



-^^m^^ 



Fig I. 



parasol feature. In contrast with these, and 

 as an example of our idea of what beauty is 

 in a weeping tree, we ask the reader's atten- 

 tion to fig. 3, which is copied from a photo- 

 graph of a weeping ash in Mr Beresford 

 Hope's park, at Bedgebury. This tree, it will 

 be observed, is thick and closely packed with 

 branches and foliage. Of course, if Mr Hope 

 should make it an arbour or a summer-house 

 the inside of the cabin must be cut out, and 

 deprive the tree of the denseness and richness 

 of its foliage, which artists would call its 

 " breadth." Again, if he should wish to do 

 so, he must cut a slit or a door on one sideto 



