LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 283 



sumaclis, acacias, and various otiier flowering subjects, the 

 purple beech, and various kinds of oak, planes and other 

 ornamental timber ; some of these in one clump and some 

 in another. They should be so planned in the planting as 

 to widen gradually in a graceful curve, and then swelling into 

 a bold breast-work, form a circle of noble trees and shrubs, 

 but fronted with evergreens and returning inwards a con- 

 siderable way back ; so that by commencing another curve 

 twenty feet further on, which should be sharper or shorter, 

 the planting being brought out nearly as far as the first, and 

 returning towards the boundary and, as it were, dying off to 

 nothing, there would appear a twenty feet opening, which 

 would not show its termination ; it would seem to lead to 

 other and more extensive space than really exists, and as the 

 back would be only fence high, and kept so, there would be 

 no boundary seen. 



These little contrivances in planting a belt are too effective 

 to be neglected, and the entire stiffness of a boundary would 

 be lost altogether. We are great advocates for evergreens to 

 form the feature of a plantation ; and therefore, in the fore- 

 ground of these swellings, as we may call them, we should be 

 lavish in the use of the arbutus, various firs, arbor-vitses, 

 cedars, rhododendrons, berberries, hollies plain and variegated, 

 in all their varieties, and other choice subjects ; as we tra- 

 versed the road then, we should be able to diversify the 

 planting, while winter would be as inviting as summer, be- 

 cause the leading feature, evergreens, would hide the trunks 

 of the deciduous trees, which would merely tower above them, 

 and thus lighten the scene. In the curves on one or other 

 side of the road we should recommend clumps, to be occupied 

 by a selection of one family of shrubs. The rhododendron 

 would form a fine clump, magnolias a second, the arbutus a 

 third, evergreen berries a fourth, hollies a fifth, and so on 

 through whole families. Thus the foliage would be diver- 

 sified in the different assemblages, while in the very large 

 clumps we might indulge in a mixture with the decid- 

 uous trees in the centre, and various evergreens form the 

 foreground. We need hardly say that these things must be 

 planted with due regard to their probable growth, and not be 

 planted too thickly ; for such gardens are not formed for two 

 or three years, but for future ages. This is the reason for 

 choosing subjects that will grow down to the ground as well 



