LANDSCAPE AND ECONOMIC PLANTING. 331 



sheltered glens that are too narrow, or whose banks may be too 

 steep for profitable cultivation, ought to be planted. In planting 

 hillsides, it is always well to make the upper outline as irregular 

 as possible, if it is impossible from the altitude to carry the 

 plantation over or up to the top of the hill. In this case the 

 irregular outline is better than a straight line. It is here we 

 again apply the teaching of nature — first, because there is no 

 economic object to be attained by a straight line, and it is here 

 that rugged nature ought to be shown, as it conveys the idea that 

 altitude or climatic influences have prevented the plantation from 

 naturally existing higher. So much for the planting of a hilly 

 or rolling country. 



On a level country, again, the treatment must be different. 

 Large masses are not so essential, except, it may be, on a flat 

 sterile plain too poor for profitable cultivation, in which case large 

 masses are not only quite admissible, but the proper form for the 

 plantations to take ; but in a rich and fertile district it would be 

 too great a saci-itice of good ground. Smaller masses may be with 

 advantage introduced, however, and hedgerow trees alongside of 

 roads and lanes, but not in hedges or fences, as they, by their 

 shelter or otherwise, might unduly interfere with the ripening of 

 neighbouring crops. The ornamental object in planting level 

 ground is not so much to create a ])icture, because the extent open 

 to the vision is very limited, hence form or relative effect is not 

 so apparent as to break the level surface, and in doing so enhance 

 the beauty, by conveying an idea of extent and creating interest 

 in the beholder, while the introduction of plantations breaks the 

 damaging influences of prevailing winds, and shelters the inter- 

 vening lands both for the production of crops and the pasturage 

 of stock. 



Beauty being a purely relative quality dependent on the circum- 

 stances under which it is contemplated, and the associations 

 attached to either the object or the mind of the beholdei", it is 

 quite possible that as much beauty may be conveyed by the 

 beholding of a comparatively flat or even rolling country, rich in 

 sylvan treasures, as in the wilder and more rugged scenery where 

 woods and jagged crags are the prevailing objects in the landscape. 

 Each has beauties peculiar to itself. It is then the duty of the 

 planter to endeavour to realise what are the conditions necessary 

 to produce their several efiects in accordance with the principles 

 of good taste ; and it may be said that this consists in the most 



