274 THE ADVANTAGES OF PLANTING IN GROUPS 



XXIX. — The Advantages of Planting in Groups, or in Mixed 

 Plantations, so as to combine Profit with Landscape Effect. 

 By William Gorrie, Eait Lodge, Edinburgh. 



Were the question merely, whether is grouping or mixed planting 

 most productive of landscape effect 1 it might be conceded that the 

 unanimous verdict would be in favour of judicious grouping ; and 

 that on all sizes of landed properties, from the two or three acre villa 

 environs, where groups are necessarily restricted to a few specimens, 

 upwards through increasing sizes of country estates, to the most exten- 

 sive and varied surfaced demesnes, where they may form masses of 

 tens, twenties, or even hundreds of acres of the same or closely allied 

 kinds. But were grouping only to be deemed admissible on condition 

 of its being equally profitable with mixed or promiscuous planting, I 

 fear that its most strenuous advocates would fail in its defence ; more 

 especially were it required that its landscape effects should be main- 

 tained unimpaired by other kinds of nurses from the time that the 

 young trees attain to sufficient size for concealing the natural herbage 

 of the ground surface. For, in the first place, there is the additional 

 cost of the young plants ; and, secondly, the thinnings will not 

 yield nearly the money returns that would be derived from larch, 

 firs, and other cheap and fast growing nurses. I will return to this 

 subject after making a few remarks on the grouping of trees for 

 landscape effect, under the following heads, viz., — 



1. Soil and situation. 



2. Forms and sizes of groups. 



3. Grouping with the same and allied kinds. 



4. Grouping with different kinds. 



5. Grouping. with respect to size, form, and colours of leafage. 



6. Park clumps, belts, groups, and solitary trees. 



7. Avenues. 



8. Fences. 



1. Soil and Situatioji. — The choice of soils and situations best 

 suited for the healthy development of the different kinds of trees is 

 even more important in ornamental than in economic planting, and 

 as, in the former, the numbers of sorts dealt with is much greater 

 than in the latter, a more widely extended knowledge of arbori- 

 cultural botany is needed than is usually aspired to by merely 

 practical foresters. Farther, in ornamental planting, a knowledge 



