284 TBEES : THE IB FOBMS AND [Feb., 



lowest branches. This form is not far removed in character from the 

 form last described. The difference between them is caused by the top 

 branches having broadened out at a much greater rate than the 

 branches lower on the tree have done. This is a form which never 

 fails to please the eye of the most fastidious observer of forms. If we 

 except the short stem, the tree is simply a monster shrub ; and those 

 of us who have the management of shrubs would do well to take 

 notice of it. Our notions as to the forms into which slirubs ought to 

 be trimmed, would thereby receive authoritative correction. That 

 such correction is necessary is evident in the wilful deformities we 

 everywhere meet with. Nature abhors an angular whole, however 

 angular she may make the parts. All her finished works are round. 

 The sky above is round ; the sun and moon are round ; the old 

 earth is round. A great interpreter of nature has said of ourselves 

 that — 



' We are such stuff 

 As dreaius are made of ; and our little life 

 Is rounded by a sleep.' 



Nature also seeks to retain roundness. Not only does she chafe and 

 hew the angular stone into a round pebble, but, while under her care, 

 the pebble is kept round. The form of tree we are considering, is a 

 form which of all forms she retains longest. It departs only at 

 extreme age. Will all the acumen and taste of the nineteenth century 

 devise how a shrub may be trimmed into another form that will not, 

 to some extent, get obliterated by a single subsequent year's growth ? 

 But the tree has yet another form to assume. It is the form of a 

 mushroom with a long stalk. Gradually from below upwards the 

 branches have disappeared, except a tuft at top of the youngest and 

 most nearly erect ones. If now the tree is not so beautiful, it is more 

 venerable than formerly. Beneath what scanty shade it affords, we 

 begin to reflect how it clapped its leaves when Milton sang, and was 

 still young when George II. died. 



' O Nature ! a' thy shows and forms 

 To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms.' 



What Burns here calls shows, more prosaic folks call phenomena. 



What poesy admires, science must account for. Between the poet and 



the man of science stands, among other figures, the plant culturist. His 



office is that of mediator. He transforms scientific facts into poetic 



forms ; he corrects Nature according to her own laws of discipline ; 



his ability is invariably an exact measure of his sympathy and of 



his intimacy with Nature. Having thus defined the culturist and 



his duties, we pass on to give some account of the forms we 



have been considering. Before we can do so, however, it will be 



necessary to enumerate certain laws that are at work. 



