1700 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART IIE. 
from the whiteness of its bark, which renders it more conspicuous in winter 
than in summer. Its stem, as Gilpin observes, “ is generally marked with 
brown, yellow, and silvery touches, which are peculiarly picturesque, as they _ 
are characteristic objects of imitation for the pencil, and as they contrast 
agreeably with the dark green hue of the foliage. But only the stem and 
larger branches have this varied colouring. The spray is of a deep brown, which 
is the colour, too, of the larger branches where the external rind is peeled off. 
As the birch grows old, its bark becomes rough and furrowed : it loses all its 
varied tints, and assumes a uniform ferruginous hue.” (Forest Scenery, vol. i. 
p. 70.) The weeping variety, which, Gilpin says, is sometimes called the 
ady birch, from “its spray being slender, and longer than that of the common 
sort, forms an elegant, pensile foliage, like that of the weeping willow ; and, 
like it, is put in motion by the least breath of air. When agitated, it is well 
adapted to characterise a storm, or to perform any office in landscape which 
is expected from the weeping willow.” (Zdid.) 
The birch, however, being an extremely common tree in various districts, 
and never being suffered to grow in any quantity, in its native countries, in 
those soils and situations where other trees will thrive, thereare certain asso- 
ciations connected with it which are unfavourable to its use in gardenesque 
scenery. Nevertheless, it must be allowed that these associations can only 
be experienced by those who have seen the tree in its native habitats. Natives 
of Scotland, North Wales, Sweden, Russia, and Germany would regard the 
birch as indicating poor, sandy, boggy, or rocky soil; and would not place 
it on alawn; from the same feelings that would prevent a London planter 
from placing there the alder, or any of the common willows. In the gar- 
denesque style, therefore, or in that species of picturesque which is an 
imitation of nature, and not an identification of her scenery, the birch, in most 
parts of Europe, would require to be planted in situations where it would not 
be conspicuous ; and never where it would form a leading feature in any - 
general view. The same principle applies in the ease of every indigenous tree ; 
and with a force proportionate to the commonness of that tree in the country 
where the gardenesque plantation is to be made. A residence planted in a 
style truly gardenesque ought, as we have often observed, to have no indigenous 
trees in it whatever. 
Whire plantations are to be made in the elegant or artistical picturesque 
style, and which are intended to form scenes which will be considered 
by painters as equally worthy of their study with picturesque natural 
scenery, and yet never for a moment be mistaken for it, the introduc- 
tion of the birch must be guided by exactly the same principles as in the 
gardenesque. It must never be planted in small groups, but always in 
groups of such a size as to be only seen in association with other trees. 
The exceptions to this last rule are, situations at a distance from scenery 
where the birch is indigenous; and these may be considered as occur- 
ring in all fertile valleys and plains. However beautiful the birch tree may 
be in itself, and especially when it assumes the weeping form, it would be 
inconsistent with sound principles to plant it on lawns either in North Wales 
or the Highlands of Scotland; though in the neighbourhood of London, and 
many parts of England, it may be justly admitted, even on lawns, as one of the 
most elegant of our ornamental trees, 
Where the common birch is so favourite a tree as to make it desired in 
considerable numbers, the only mode of introducing it into artificial scenery 
in countries where it abounds, is by planting it in avenues, or in geometrical 
lines ; or by having a scene expressly devoted to a fac-simile imitation of nature. 
Where, in planting a park, the object is to cause it to be mistaken for a 
natural forest, then, if the soil is poor, the birch may be slanted or sown in im- 
mense quantities; the object in this ease being fac-simile imitation. In every resi- 
dence, also, where there is an arboretum (and we trust that the time will soon 
come when there will be no gentleman’s seat of any extent without one), the 
birch, like every other indigenous tree, will, of course, find a place. In resi- 
dences to be formed in hilly or mountainous scenery where the birch does 
on 
