ON PLANTING ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS IN MASSES. 155 
cated may seem incompatible with any such appearance; but the de- 
sired slope is easily produced by letting the minor plants predominate, 
and making those which are to diversify it the fewest. It is surprising 
to persons unaccustomed to such work, how trifling a quantity of larger 
specimens will serve to give boldness, and undulation, and variety to a 
shrubbery border; and the greater the number of species that is 
employed, the more perfect will be the fulfilment of that object. The 
correct estimate of beauty in this respect may be derived from analogy 
with another branch of the natural kingdom. In a rocky district, or 
an artificial rockery, it is not a straight slope from the walk or point 
of observation which pleases the eye. It is rather to rising eminences, 
and rugged protuberances and projections which almost impend over 
the observer, that he yields his admiration ; while a perceptible descent 
is actually maintained from the back to the foreground. 
However, where beds of low shrubs, not more than twelve or twenty 
feet in diameter, stand out alone on a lawn, or, indeed, where any 
group, the dimensions of which can be seen at a glance, is planted on 
turf, the outside of such beds or group ought to come down to the 
grass, so that the two may, as it were, insensibly pass into each other, 
To introduce higher shrubs around the edges of beds of that sort would 
be completely unwarrantable and subversive of good taste. Yet, the 
surface of the group ought not to appear as regular as if it had been cast 
in a mould, and the destruction of its formality by placing two or 
three taller plants near the middle, and a few more within two or three 
feet of the grass, so as to leave room for smaller plants to complete the 
slope to the latter, will be both proper and desirable. 
As to the ground outline of masses of shrubs, that must be decided 
by the nature of the locality, and the express purport of the group. 
In a geometrical shrub-garden, the figures should not be very small 
nor very close, nor have many corners or points. A collection of beds 
disposed with more freedom ought to be formed by the same rules, and 
be divested of abrupt recesses, or sharp turns, approximating their 
contour as nearly as practicable to rounded and regular curves. ‘The 
circle, the oval, and every irregular shape that at all resembles these, 
are beautifully suited to shrubs. When beds of them are thrown 
down upon the turf before a house or conservatory, or other building, 
to enliven and vary the scene, it requires the greatest care to avoid 
bringing them too forward, so as to interfere with the broad open 
glade that should always front such erections, and also to prevent them 
from taking the aspect of being ranged in anything like a straight line. 
To this end, no two should terminate at the same distance from the 
centre of the glade; or, to speak more definitely, that part of every 
one which is nearest the middle of the lawn should not be at an equal 
distance from it with the same relative part of any other; nor should 
there even be the semblance of such regularity. The proper mode, 
where at all possible, is to let each bed, as it recedes from the building, 
fall away likewise from the centre of the lawn; abjuring, however, all 
uniformity of distance. The glade will thus gradually expand till it 
is lost in the more ample pleasure grounds. I will give you a de- 
seriptive list of the shrubs I deem most ornamental and useful for the 
August number of this Magazine. 
7 
