272 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



would be broken. We find in all pleasing landscapes a total 

 absence of formality; and tbe gardener's task is to imitate 

 the beauties, and to bring into his work as many of the best 

 features as the nature of the ground he has to work on will 

 admit. If the ground be undulating or flat, there must be 

 no sharp turns. A road must be laid down in graceful 

 sweeps ; hard lines are always unpleasant to the eye, and 

 must be avoided. Abrupt turnings and elbows are equally 

 objectionable. The same appKes to rivers or rivulets which 

 run through grounds. Anything like a straight margin is a 

 complete eyesore : angles are as bad ; and whenever such occur, 

 and cannot be altered, they must be concealed. Eoads, too, 

 should be, as far as it can be contrived, level, and in un- 

 dulating ground ; the rising, unless very gentle, must be 

 lowered, and each side eased off to a gentle slope on the parts 

 next the cuttiQg. All these things are to be attended to 

 as so many rules ; all deviations must be exceptions forced 

 on the gardener ; and his study must then be how they can 

 best be hidden by plantiag, or reconciled by other schemes. 

 It is rarely that the landscape gardener has to deal with 

 barren ground ; there is usually a quantity of trees of various 

 heights and kinds. It must be his study to appropriate 

 these to his design, or, at least, some of them. If, however, 

 there be any formality or stiffness in their situations, which 

 is frequently the case if he has to take in fields that have 

 been hedged and timbered, a sufficient number must be 

 taken down to break the line ; and on grubbing of hedges, 

 all the common stuff must be destroyed first, leaving any 

 portions that have grown up at all ornamental until a later 

 period of his work ; then he may, if he feels inclined, work 

 to them ; for it must not be forgotten, that it takes many 

 years to equal tilings that have grown up well. Not that he 

 is to sacrifice his plan to such an object, but that he must not 

 hastily destroy what may be found highly useful. If a man 

 has an unconditional instruction to form a garden upon his 

 own plan, and to pay no regard to anything that is standing, 

 he win be less inclined to sacrifice any rule than to sacrifice 

 whatever may be there ; but there is, nevertheless, as much 

 art in adapting a plan to circumstances, as in carrying out a 

 perfect design, and perhaps more ; but, as a matter of cost, 

 some hundreds of pounds may often be saved without sacri- 

 ficing any general principle ; and it is the reckless inattention 



