ON PRUNING AND THINNING TREES. 245 



period care should be taken to relieve such by lopping off the 

 branches of the nurse plants, and cutting down others as may be 

 required. 



I am decidedly against the introduction of the black Italian 

 Poplar, either as a nurse plant for shelter, or any other purpose, 

 unless it is quite certain that the whole are to be removed in 

 due time : as it is at no period of its growth to be admired, but 

 generally exclusively ugly. When young it never harmonizes 

 with other trees, and as it advances in growth, it soon becomes 

 disproportionate, top heavy, and in the end so over-balanced 

 as invariably to bear on one side, and frequently to become 

 nearly prostrate. Indeed I am opposed to the family of Poplar.s 

 generally, except the Lombardy, which I should be sorry to 

 condemn ; on the contrary, when judiciously planted in groups, 

 of from three to fifteen, in deep vallies, in dense masses of 

 trees, or woods, and in connexion with churches or other build- 

 ings, especially those ofthe Gothic and Elizabethian style, a 

 happy effect will be produced : but the country generally has 

 become barbarously disfigured, by the introduction of most of 

 the other kinds, (but more especially the black Italian) that 

 could I raise a hue and cry against them, so as to have them 

 totally banished from the country I should consider I had done 

 justice to my own feelings, and to those of every one possessing 

 true taste to Landscape scenery ; but am I not speaking too 

 hastily? Is not the Poplar the darling of a Professor of Land- 

 scape Gardening, who has scarcely known how to say enough 

 in its praise ? Ought he not to possess a taste for Landscape 

 Gardening, he ought, and does, but what kind of taste is 

 it, such a one it is hoped he now heartily repents of, let him 

 look round and see what frightful objects he has reared in many 

 parts of the country ; and surely his conscience will tell him he 

 has done mischief enough already, and the only way in which he 

 can redeem his credit with the country, is to recommend the axe 

 instantly to be laid to their roots, and at one fell sweep, exter- 

 minate them all. 



I will now conclude with a hope that my early remarks on 

 thinning, &c. may be of service, if not to those who have plan- 

 tations of long standing, at least to those who are forming 

 new ones— and advising that they will above all things keep 

 out that frightful objeot, the black Italian Poplar. 



J. Major- 



