io6 Hints on Landscape Gardening 



rate, they become something quite different ; but 

 if the hand is present, beauties are continually 

 being added without losing or sacrificing those 

 already in existence. The chief tool which we 

 use — that is, our brush and chisel — is the spade 

 for construction ; the chief tool for maintenance and 

 improvement is the axe. It must not rest for a 

 single winter, or it will happen to us with the 

 trees as with the water-carriers in the tale of the 

 "Wizard's Apprentice" — they will grow over 

 our heads. 



But the axe is just as necessary for keeping 

 the plantations everywhere at the right height 

 as for attaining the right density, for giving them 

 plenty of air, and for providing against over- 

 crowding. As, moreover, thinning is the quick- 

 est and lightest work, and in winter there is not 

 much else to be done, there is always plenty of 

 time for it, provided one never misses a year. 



To keep large masses of mixed plantations at 

 a given height one must not, as it were, decapi- 

 tate them all, but only regularly every year cut 

 out the highest growth, which then for the 

 greater part will produce new undergrowth, and 

 after a certain term of years will begin in turn 

 to be the highest. In this manner the planta- 

 tions appear always of the same age and natural 

 form, a piece of art of which it may be truly 

 said that it is a pity that it cannot be applied to 

 mankind. 



Where there are narrow vistas, single trees 

 must be decapitated here and there, but this can 



