94 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



modern style of Landscape Gardening, wherever it is ap- 

 preciated, will, in practice, consist in arranging a demesne 

 of from five to some hundred acres, — or rather that portion 

 of it, say one half, one third, etc., devoted to lawn and 

 pleasure-ground, pasture, etc. — so as to exhibit groups of 

 forest and ornamental trees and shrubs, surrounding the 

 dwelling of the proprietor, and extending for a greater or 

 less distance, especially towards the place of entrance from 

 the public highway. Near the house, good taste will dic- 

 tate the assemblage of groups and masses of the rarer or 

 more beautiful trees and shrubs ; commoner native forest 

 trees occupying the more distant portions of the grounds.* 

 Plantations in the Modern Style. In the Modern 

 Style of Landscape Gardening, it is our aim, in plantations, 

 to produce not only what is called natural beauty, but 

 even higher and more striking beauty of expression, and of 

 individual forms, than we see in nature ; to create variety 



* Although we love planting, and avow that there are few greater pleasures 

 than to see a darling tree, of one's own placing, every year stretching wider its 

 feathery head of foliage, and covering with a darker shadow the soft turf beneath 

 it, still, we will not let the ardent and inexperienced hunter after a location for 

 a country residence, pass without a word of advice. This is, always to make 

 considerable sacrifice to get a place with some existing wood, or a few ready 

 grown trees upon it ; especially near the site for the house. It is better to 

 yield a Uttle in the extent of prospect, or in the direct proximity to a certain 

 locaUty, than to pitch your tent in a plain, — desert-hke in its bareness — on 

 which your leafy sensibilities must suffer for half a dozen years at least, before 

 you can hope for any solace. It is doubtful whether there is not almost as 

 much interest in studying from one's window the curious ramifications, the 

 variety of form, and the entire harmony, to be found in a fine old tree, as in 

 gazing from a site where we have no interruption to a panorama of the whole 

 horizon ; and we have generally found that no planters have so little courage 

 and faith, as those who have commenced without the smallest group of large 

 trees, as a nucleus for their plantations. 



