ON ORNAMENTAL PLANTING. 279 



often present any thing rather than order or neatness, assuming a 

 gay appearance ; and their walls, which now are generally naked 

 and cheerless, would be covered with some or other of the ever- 

 greens, mixed with the jessamine and the rose, the Virginia 

 creeper, and the prettiest of all, Scotland's wild plants— the 

 woodland. 



From such improvements in their gardens, it may reasonably 

 be expected that the inmates of the cottages would gain not a 

 little in point of taste and good feeling; order and cleanliness 

 would supplant disorder and filthiness ; and, above all, if the 

 cottage child, during his hours of leisure and relaxation, were 

 trained to look after, and take an interest in a few flowers and 

 evergreens, he would, from such salutary and healthful occupa- 

 tions, form a kind of attachment to the vegetable kingdom, and 

 instead of wantonly destroying, impairing, or cutting the trees, 

 of which we have so many disgraceful proofs, he would feel a dis- 

 inclination to offer them any injury. 



The mutilating of statues, even in our church yards, the des- 

 truction of the cope stones of walls and bridges, and of the very 

 mile stones on our public highways, are instances of wanton 

 mischief which we believe to be more often seen in Scotland 

 than elsewhere, and it is a disgrace to the most enlightened and 

 virtuous peasantry in the world. We have sometimes thought 

 that this moral phenomenon is to be traced to the remains of the 

 spirit of destroying statues and temples, to which the horrors of 

 the oppression, usurpations, selfishness, and corruptions of the 

 Church of Rome, drove our ancestors at the era of the Reforma- 

 tion. Means ought to be employed to counteract this tendency 

 and that which we have suggested may not be altogether devoid 

 of use in this respect. 



It is well known how much a regard for the lower animals is 

 cherished by youth, by having some favorite to look after and 

 fondle ; and how indifferent to the brute creation, and how reck- 

 less of human life, are those who have never been accustomed 

 to take an interest in it. On the same principle, those who have 

 been brought up in heaths and districts bare of wood, aie gene- 

 rally observed to do the most wanton mischief to trees. 



"With a view to such objects, it might be advisable to attach to 

 every parochial school, indeed to all schools, a small plat of gar- 

 den ground, ornamented with flowers, and most of the plants 

 used for domestic purposes. Such a garden, but upon a larger 



