82 PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



Avenues. — We seldom recommend the planting of 

 avenues in the park except in certain localities noticed in 

 our remarks on the approach. The stiff formality of 

 the avenue is injurious to park scenery, as it frequently 

 divides, by its straight lines, a fine expanse of grass, and 

 obscures the most interesting part of the landscape. 

 Another objection to the avenue is, that it requires to 

 grow for the lifetime of two or three generations before 

 it produces its full effect, and it is not surprising, there- 

 fore, that it is so seldom planted. The same trees 

 arranged in groups and clumps, would present a beau- 

 tiful appearance in one-third of the time. 



Avenues should hardly ever be attempted except on a 

 level surface, or on ground with a slight and uniform 

 rise. A close avenue composed of two rows of trees, 

 and planted on an undulating surface, has always a poor 

 look : on the contrary, even in such situations, where 

 there are breadth and mass, as in the compoimd avenues 

 at Windsor, the effect is fine. 



The question may be asked, " What is to be done with 

 an old established avenue V We may answer partly in 

 the words of Mr. Gilpin. "The avenue,'' says he, "is 

 in general so destitute of composition, by cutting the 

 landscape in half, that the introduction of it must 

 depend upon the circumstances of the place itself. On 

 the other hand, where time has invested it with dignity, 

 and the rest of the scenery is coeval mth it, temerity 

 rather than judgment would dictate its destruction. 

 Breaking it by partial removal is, I think, equally inju- 

 dicious.'' With the opinions here expressed we heartily 

 concur. We venerate an old avenue with its double or 

 quadruple rows of ancestral trees. No sacrilegious axe 

 ought to be lifted up against them, even though they 



