THE FORMATION OF PLANTATIONS, HT | 
if possible, to be avoided; for, besides presenting an unnatural 
appearance in the landscape, they are less able to resist outward 
pressure. As a matter of convenience, however, they have often 
to be adopted when the plantation is formed in immediate 
proximity to agricultural land. Apart from esthetic considera- 
tions, it is immaterial what form the plantation should take on the 
side sheltered from the prevailing winds, The chief aim should 
be to give its general contour as natural an appearance as possible, 
in conjunction with the securing of strength to resist storms, the 
curves of the outline being adapted to the configuration of the 
ground—the convex form prevailing in rising ground, and gradually 
giving place to the concave, as it again recedes. I cannot agree 
with those who attach little or no importance to scenic effect when 
laying out a plantation. Much can be done to secure beauty of 
scenery by a suitable arrangement of even the commonest of our 
forest trees. Each kind possesses shades and beauties peculiarly 
its own. ‘To use the words of the poet Cowper, 
** No tree in all the grove but has its charms, 
Though each its peculiar hue; paler some, 
And of a warmish grey; the willow such, 
And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf, 
And ash, far stretching his umbrageous arm: 
Of deeper green the elm, and deeper still, 
Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak, 
Some glossy-leav’d, and shining in the sun, 
The maple, and the beech of oily nuts 
Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve 
Diffusing odours; not unnoted pass 
The sycamore, capricious in attire, 
Now green, now tawny, and ere autumn yet 
Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright.” 
A great deal can be accomplished by judicious grouping. 
Although it is often necessary in profitable wood culture to have a 
mixture of different kinds of trees in young plantations for the 
sake of providing suitable nurses, or for the production of timber 
likely to prove remunerative when removed as thinnings, there is 
no reason why this order should be maintained with the permanent 
crop. Viewed as a whole, and as a prominent object in the land- 
scape, a plantation will produce the best effect at every season of 
the year when the trees are grouped or massed together according 
to their several varieties and shades of foliage. 
