202 SCIENCE OF THE STUDY OF TREES. PART IT. 
tural interest connected in our minds with young trees, and so delightful to 
us is the idea of preparing the soil in such a manner as to cause them to grow 
with extraordinary rapidity, that, if any one were to present us with a tim- 
bered estate, the first thing we should do would be, to cut down all the old 
trees, and to plant young ones. 
In treating of trees individually, in the Arboretum Britannicum, it will form 
an important part of their description, to indicate the kind of expression pro- 
duced by their forms, their attitudes, and their other pictorial qualities; and 
of their history, to record all those facts respecting each species, which may 
lead to interesting associations, whenever it occurs, whether it be in a young 
or an old state. 
Sect. III. Of the Mode of drawing Trees from Nature, in such a 
Manner as to give the general pictorial Expression of the Species 
of Tree delineated. 
In drawing trees from nature, with a view to their introduction into land- 
scape composition, the selection is very different from that made when the 
intention is to show trees as single objects. Where trees are to be introduced 
into landscape composition along with buildings, animals, or other trees, the 
symmetry or beauty of the form of the tree, considered by itself, is a matter 
of comparatively little importance. 
A tree which is mutilated, the branches of which are ill balanced, or imper- 
fectly clothed with tufts of foliage, will group better with other trees or 
objects, than a tree which is complete in itself. Such trees are perfectly well 
suited to the landscape-painter ; but, except in the case of transplanting very 
large trees in order to produce immediate effect, they are of no use to the 
landscape-gardener, the ornamental planter, or the planter with a view to 
profit or use. To represent a tree mutilated or in any way imperfect, or to 
represent a group or whole composed of such trees, would be to exhibit what 
no art of the gardener could produce ; and, therefore, what to him is useless, 
however valuable it might be in a picturesque point of view. Our object, in 
giving portraits of trees, has reference almost entirely to the gardenesque, to 
the ornamental, and to the useful. The aim of our portraits, therefore, is 
natural beauty and expression, with reference to the kind of tree drawn; and 
not beauty and character with reference to any description of graphic art. It 
is, in short, the beauty of truth, not local or peculiar truth, or truth with 
reference to any mode of depicting it ; that is, not a portrait of a tree with the 
peculiarities which it may happen to have at a particular time and place, from 
peculiar circumstances; or a portrait taken to show the beauties of any par- 
ticular style of sketching, drawing, or painting. It is not the portrait of a 
tree which has been overtopped by another tree, been improperly pruned, 
a part of it scorched by fire, or a part of the leaves destroyed by insects; or a 
portrait.taken to show the picturesque effect of broken lights and shadows, 
breadth of masses, deep tone of colours, the sharpness of lines printed from 
copper or steel, or the softness of touches printed from zinc or stone. No: 
to draw a tree with any of these sorts of peculiarities would be in the same 
taste as it would be to give, as a specimen of the human being, a portrait of 
a man mutilated or deformed by accident or disease, or in a grotesque attitude 
or dress ; or, as a specimen of the human face, a portrait of one disfigured 
with warts or pimples. This would be to portray not merely the individual 
instead of the species, but the individual under circumstances which had no- 
thing to do wich his character or expression, whether moral or graphic, as an 
individual. 
It being agreed, then, that the object in drawing trees for the Arboretum 
Britannicum is to give a faithful portrait of the species, neglecting such cireum- 
stances as may be peculiar to the individual, the next point is to determine the 
season of the year at which the portrait is to be taken. With a view to this" 
object, trees may be divided into three kinds: those the greatest beauty of 
