SEA-SIDE PLANTING. 



It is generally allowed to be very difficult to get trees and shrubs to grow, 

 much more flourish, on many parts of the sea coast, and thus afford any 

 degree of interest and satisfaction. But while admitting the difficulty, I am 

 persuaded that, with attention and care, their growth may be greatly pro- 

 moted, as I propose to shew from two cases that have come under my 

 observation ; one on the eastern, and the other on the western coast. The 

 difficulty arises, it is thought, from the injurious effects of the sea spray 

 falling upon trees ; but this, in my opinion, is very doubtful. 



About fourteen years ago, I was engaged to fix the site of a marine villa 

 on the eastern coast, and to lay out the grounds. The ground is in general 

 flat, with little variation. Between the edifice and the sea there is a space 

 of about one hundred and sixty yards ; the flat extends about one hunched 

 and twenty yards, to a point about one hundred feet above the level of the 

 sea ; the rest forms a steep bank, sloping rapidly down to the sands. The 

 nature of the ground is very stiff, with a clayey bottom, but well drained. 

 Among other tilings, I arranged a plantation of trees and shrubs from the 

 house down to the sands. It was planted in the usual way, with trees from 

 three to four years old, set about four feet apart. Two years after planting, 

 half the trees at least were dead, and the rest had made scarcely any progress. 

 The whole was replanted very thickly, the trees not being more than from 

 one to two feet apart. I visited the place about two years afterwards, and 

 found above half ahve, though very little improved. The young shoots were 

 mostly dead, and the rest dying ; but on my visit to the spot about seven years 

 after, I found, from the shelter the trees had afforded each other, by being 

 thickly planted, many of them had attained the height of twelve feet. Among 

 these were the Wych elm, willow, sycamore, common ash, and a solitary 

 occidental plane, (which was weU sheltered by other trees), the whole having 

 made shoots that year from two to three feet long ; the Turkey oak, larch, 



