plantations 219 



dently preconceived, though ceaselessly varying, type 

 or method of growing. 



Besides the type of leafage, form, and colour, there is 

 to be considered the still more positive character of the 

 trunk, branches, and twigs, stark and bare in winter 

 and early spring. The white birch already noted is 

 one, and there are hosts of others. They stand out, 

 the white oak, for instance, against a lurid winter 

 sunset, or they glitter after an ice storm, showing their 

 strange convolution of branches, like the oak and thorn 

 described in another chapter by Richard Jefferies. 

 There is also the fruit of the thorns and wild plums, 

 chokeberries, black alders, viburnums, and roses, 

 hanging in some cases all winter on their naked stems. 



All these separate qualities in a tree or shrub need 

 to be handled in a sympathetic way in the composition 

 of a year round landscape. It may be asked how this is 

 to be done. Certainly it is not easy, and few succeed 

 in doing it. It can only be done by study, careful 

 study, of the nature of the trees and shrubs and their 

 behaviour in hundreds of instances on the lawn and in 

 the field and woods, and some help can, of course, be 

 had by reference to books and prints enabling one to 

 pursue the trail of experience, and to finally attain to 

 something really worth accomplishing. Did you ever 

 hear of a man, a city clerk, who on a small city lot grew 

 such flowers that finally his wonderful horticultural 

 skill astonished his correspondents the world over. 

 He did not accomplish these great triumphs by means 

 of books, but books helped him. 



